


Shadows of Times Past

by BeesOfGallifrey



Series: Hopes and Fears [2]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Time War-related angst, sorry about that, this seems to be veering in an angstier direction than initially intended, tw ptsd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 42,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22455148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeesOfGallifrey/pseuds/BeesOfGallifrey
Summary: After having been unceremoniously dumped in late 19th century London several years previously by Irving Braxiatel, Leela and Narvin have been reunited, and as the next step in Brax's mysterious plan falls into place, they are finally able to leave Earth, and begin their search for Romana, in the hope that she survived the Time War - a war that, despite being a thing of the past, still won't let them live in peace. The sequel to Dreams of Forgotten Lives.
Relationships: Leela (Doctor Who)/Narvin (Doctor Who)
Series: Hopes and Fears [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1615774
Comments: 26
Kudos: 26





	1. Departure

_March 1901_

There was a chill in the air, that morning. The smoke haze rose lazily across the city from countless chimneys, the spring buds shivered on their branches, early-rising tradesmen stamped their feet on street corners and rubbed their hands together crossly, for they had already turned their backs on the winter for this year.

In a quiet corner of a tidy, tree-lined park, a man smiled to himself, unbothered by the cold. He ran a hand along the bark of the innocent-looking tree beside him, pressed the metal band encircling his wrist, and disappeared.

Across the city, in the flat above the watchmaker’s shop, Leela stirred, and rolled over, one arm flung out across the bed, seeking the subtle warmth of the Time Lord who slept beside her. This morning, however, she found only cold, crinkled sheets, and she blinked, now fully awake. There was an empty space beside her. Narvin was not there.

Leela sat up, unworried. He usually woke before she did, being a Time Lord, and sometimes he would rise soon after waking, as he had frequently done on Gallifrey, so long ago. But increasingly now, he would stay in bed, curled around her human warmth, watching her sleep in his arms, waiting patiently for her to wake. Clearly, today was not one of those days.

She got out of bed and draped a blanket around her shoulders, and left the room to hunt down her husband.

She found him outside, sitting halfway down the cold stone steps that led from their kitchen door down to the small, empty yard behind their home, still barefoot and in his nightshirt. She sat down beside him, and wrapped the blanket around his shoulders too, leaving her arm wrapped securely around him. He gave a start.

“Leela?”

“Yes. You were expecting someone else?” She took his hand and held it tightly in her own. “You are freezing!”

He said nothing, but let her pull him towards her, his arm creeping around her waist, and he rested his head on her shoulder.

She leant her head against his. “Is everything alright?”

He was silent for several moments before speaking. “It’s nothing. I had a bad dream, is all. That’s not exactly unusual.”

She squeezed his hand in understanding. “A nightmare?”

“In a way, I suppose. There was no waking up screaming, no cold sweat, but it was… unsettling.”

She hugged him tighter. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps.”

He fell silent again, and sat upright, staring out across the yard at the row of houses behind theirs. Between the buildings, empty washing lines swayed in the spring breeze, and two scruffy pigeons squabbled on the opposite roof. In the distance were the shouts of calls, the trundle of wheels, the fall of hooves; the sounds of a city waking up.

Narvin looked back at her, his brow furrowed, his expression troubled. “I was in the Matrix,” he said quietly, “I dreamed I was in the Matrix, and it was empty. I was the only one, the only thing there. It contained nothing, Leela. No data, no minds or memories of departed Time Lords, nothing. Just me. Alone. But then you were there, and I reached for you, and you just… splintered, as if it had been a photograph of you that someone had taken scissors to and cut up into vertical strips and thrown to the breeze. You were gone, scattered, as if you had never been there at all. And I was alone again. But then you appeared once more, and I thought ‘Oh, that can’t have been Leela at all. That must have been the Interrogator General, not the real Leela, not _my_ Leela’. But then the same thing happened again, and you were gone, splintered, over and over and over again, and every time I was left feeling that little bit more alone. And then I woke up, and you were sleeping by my side, right where I left you.”

Leela pulled him closer to her, and he buried his face in her neck.

“It was a dream, Narvin,” she said softly, “it was not real. I am here. You are not alone.”

“I know,” he said, his voice muffled, “I just… it’s left me feeling… _off_. As if nothing is quite as it should be, as if that feeling of wrongness I had when I was dreaming didn’t go away when I woke up.”

Leela knew there was little she could say to him that would help. After all, she was sadly familiar with that unsettled uncomfortable feeling, which made the whole world seem a little off-kilter, and so she said nothing at all, simply pressed a kiss to the top of his head and tugged the blanket around him more securely, running her hand soothingly down his back. He nuzzled at her neck in response, his grip on her waist tightening. They stayed there for quite some time.

A movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she glanced up to see the old woman in the house behind them had just opened her curtains, and was staring out the window at them in stony-faced disapproval. Leela blinked, glanced down, and realised that both she and Narvin were still barefoot and in their nightclothes.

She tugged at Narvin’s hand and he looked up at her, blinking tiredly.

“Come inside, Narvin, and we can warm up. It is cold, and we are not dressed yet.”

His eyes widened and he sat upright. “I’m so sorry, you must be frozen.”

She shook her head. “I am alright. But your hands are cold. Come in, and we can have some tea.”

He nodded blearily and let her pull him to his feet, and together they climbed the steps into the warmth of the kitchen.

* * *

Narvin chose not to open the shop that day. He decided that feeling unsettled as he was, he was highly likely to lose his temper with the first human to do so much as breathe the wrong way. Instead, he sat at the desk in the backroom, going through all the outstanding bills, invoices and clock part order forms that needed his urgent attention. He was beginning to think that humans enjoyed unnecessarily complicated paperwork and bureaucracy as much as Time Lords once had.

On the whole, he didn’t mind this job, but watchmaking and mending clocks was not presenting him with much of a challenge anymore. It had become simple, easy and mundane, and he was becoming increasingly tired of the sight of clockwork, and so he often found himself looking forwards to doing the paperwork – it provided a very slight change of scenery, if nothing else. Still, as the professions available in this era went, it was far from being a bad job.

He stopped writing, and put his pen down with a sigh, his shoulders hunched. The feeling of wrongness had faded a little, but was still quietly, pervasively present, as if someone was standing close behind him, silent and still, occasionally prodding him in the shoulder.

The Time War was like that, it seemed, for both of them. The shadow of it never quite went away. Some days were all light, the war a distant, faded memory, whereas on other days, the shadows would creep in around the edges, hovering in peripheral vision, present and yet not quite there. The worst days where the dark days, when it seemed all was shadow, and light was an impossible invention that couldn’t exist, couldn’t ever be true.

Narvin’s gaze drifted from his work to the photograph of Leela that sat upon his desk. Well, Leela when she had been Lily, anyway - it was one of the portraits that had been taken on their wedding day. She gazed warmly at him out of the frame, the sepia tones making her hair seem the wrong shade of brown; her lips curved with the merest hint of that smile, the smile that set his hearts racing every single time. Some of the tension left his shoulders and he sat a little straighter; the phantom lurking over his shoulder shrank back a step. There was one thing Narvin was absolutely certain of: if Leela wasn’t around, all of his days would be seeped in shadow.

She had offered to stay with him, to keep him company, to ward off the dark thought on his behalf. But he had refused her offer, insisted he was recovered, that he was fine now, and it was just tiredness that had made everything seem far worse than it truly was, and that she should visit their acquaintances in Paternoster Row, just as she had originally planned to do today. He didn’t want her to worry, after all. And he _was_ fine, mostly.

Before she left, she had held him tightly, and whispered in his ear that if he needed her, he should send her a note and she would come home straight away. Then, she had cupped his face in her hands and kissed him as delicately and gently as one might handle a particularly old, priceless and fragile antique, and his hearts had trembled at her touch, as though she had never kissed him before.

And then she was gone, out the door in a whirl, sending one last smile at him over her shoulder, before purposefully marching down the street, off to spar with Jenny, wrestle with Strax, or whatever else it was she was planning on doing with her day.

She had changed the way she dressed, lately. To outsiders, it would seem that Lily Jones was merely keeping up with the changing fashions of the new century, but Narvin knew differently. To him, Leela was quietly drawing a line, distinguishing _Leela_ from _Lily_. Instead of the dresses Lily had worn, Leela had taken to wearing long skirts with blouses, and she arranged her hair differently too, pinning it more loosely in a simpler, rounder style, instead of Lily’s carefully ordered curls.

Narvin hadn’t really had the same opportunity to distance himself from Neville, unfortunately. He had successfully phased out Neville’s Welsh accent, but the fashion for people who were expected to wear suits never seemed to change, beyond the occasional minor alteration in collar style. If he could get away with it, he’d much prefer to wear robes, but unfortunately, the only people who seemed to wear similar garments in this particular place and time seemed to be priests. Besides, to the outside world, he was still Neville, and any drastic deviation from the norm would attract far too much attention.

He realised he’d been staring vaguely at the photograph for a good ten minutes without moving, his mind wandering far more than he had permitted it to. Narvin wearily rubbed his eyes, and got back to work with a sigh, setting aside an invoice to a particularly odious customer who had owed him a considerable amount of money for over four months now, instead turning his attention to the day’s post.

There were three envelopes. The first two were probably bills, addressed to Mr N. Jones, the postage stamp in the corner still bearing the face of Queen Victoria, though she had died two months ago. Narvin found the tradition of putting the face of the monarch on stamps and currency somewhat disconcerting. It was the equivalent of putting an image of the President of Gallifrey’s face on the corner of every single communication ever sent around the Capitol, something that he was certain he would have found utterly enraging, especially in the times before he was Romana’s ally, or after Rassilon’s less than welcome return to power.

He sighed, and turned the third envelope over, to find that it had no stamp or address at all. The elegant writing on the front simply read, ‘Narvinectralonum’. 

Narvin blinked, his eyes slowly widening in surprise, his heats beating faster. Shakily, he placed the first two envelopes to the side. If this letter was addressed to him, to _Narvin_ , then it was likely that the contents of the other two envelopes were entirely irrelevant.

He picked up the letter-opener and ran it carefully across the top of the envelope, and carefully eased out the letter inside. It was barely a letter, really; simply a short, neatly written note, on a sheet of paper that had been folded several times, and that was far too big for the simple sentence it contained.

‘ _There is a tree in St. James’ Park that was not there yesterday._ ’

Narvin’s frown darkened into a scowl when he realised he recognised the handwriting. “So, as if abandoning us here and wiping our memories wasn’t enough, you’re leaving us cryptic clues now, Braxiatel? _Wonderful_.”

He gritted his teeth in frustration and checked the envelope in case there were any other nonsensical clues hiding in there. There were no other sheets of paper, but there _was_ something he had missed the first time round, in his eagerness to read the so-called ‘letter’.

The envelope contained a key.

Narvin inhaled sharply. With trembling hands, he tipped the key onto the desk. It was achingly familiar, not because he had seen this particular key before, but because of the simple fact of its nature. The key was Gallifreyan in origin.

Narvin’s hearts were hammering, his head was throbbing, and the tension in his shoulders increasing as the implications of the key’s existence became clear.

An extra tree in St. James’ Park. A smugly cryptic note in Irving Braxiatel’s handwriting. And a key, a key that unmistakably belonged to a TARDIS.

Narvin sat back in his chair and exhaled slowly. Finally, seven years after they had been abandoned here, two years after their other selves had first met, one year after their memories were restored, they had a way out. They could leave London behind. They could begin their search for Romana.

His hands clenched into fists and he silently cursed Braxiatel. If there really was a TARDIS hidden out there, would it really have killed Brax to have left it on their doorstep? Would that really have been too complicated? And why had he taken so long about giving them a way out?

He sighed, and glanced at the nearest clock. It was nearing ten o’clock. Placing the key carefully back in its envelope and putting it in his breast pocket, Narvin stood up and straightened his jacket, suddenly seething with purpose and determination. He had a TARDIS to find.

* * *

Leela collapsed in the waiting armchair, exhausted but invigorated. As ever, her practise bouts against Jenny and Strax had been delightfully challenging, a welcome distraction from the primness and the propriety of this era; a chance to be herself around people of this time who did not know her as Lily. The latter was one of the reasons she looked forwards to seeing Jago and Litefoot too, but she could not practise fighting with them. Meeting Strax and Jenny had given her the opportunity to hone the instincts and abilities that had once been so natural to her, but had been left neglected over the past few years.

When she was practising with them, she felt like a warrior again.

Madam Vastra looked up from her book, and put it aside. “I take it your training session went well, then?”

Jenny perched on the arm of Vastra’s chair. “It always does, when Leela’s around. You know, I think Strax is a little bit scared of her.”

“Only a little bit?” Vastra tilted her head at Jenny in amusement.

“He’s probably _very_ scared of her. It’s hard to tell, with Strax.”

Strax appeared in the doorway. “I am a soldier of Sontar. I do not know fear.”

“Of course you don’t,” said Vastra, “You do appear to be limping, though.”

Strax grunted. “The _warrior_ ,” he said, pointing at Leela with menace, “has injured my shins. It is nothing. I will heal.”

Jenny snorted. “You’re getting old, Strax.”

“As are you. Your hair is changing colour.”

Jenny raised a hand to the very slight grey streak in her hair self-consciously.

Vastra glared at Strax. “Please fetch the tea, Strax.” She turned to Jenny. “Take no notice of him, my dear. I happen to like your hair.”

Jenny smiled at her, and opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a loud and urgent knocking at the front door.

“New orders, Strax. Please answer the door, and then get the tea.”

Strax bowed stiffly, left the room grumbling, and returned moments later, followed by an unusually disorderly looking Narvin. Leela frowned at him suspiciously. He seemed flustered, feverish, his eyes bright with something that looked strangely like _excitement_ , of all things, and he seemed to have vegetation clinging to his clothing. Strax disappeared again, muttering something under his breath.

Leela stood up, and tilted her head questioningly at Narvin, but he said nothing, simply swiftly crossed the room to join her. When he reached her side, she raised a hand to his head and he leaned away from her, frowning.

“Stay still,” she chided, “You have a twig stuck behind your ear. You are covered in tree, Narvin. What _have_ you been doing?” She put the twig on a side-table and started to dust down Narvin’s jacket, picking off leaves, faintly bewildered.

“I’ll tell you, but only if you stop fussing over me like that,” he muttered, his gaze flickering to Vastra and Jenny briefly before flitting away and settling decisively on Leela, his cheeks faintly pink.

Leela reluctantly let her hand drop from his shoulder. “Very well,” she huffed, “but even if I did not stop, you would tell me anyway.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really? And what exactly makes you think that?”

“You have clearly rushed here for a reason, Narvin, and I doubt it was to wrestle Strax. Something has happened, and so you have come to find me, to tell me about it. That is obvious.”

He raised his other eyebrow. “Is it now?”

She grinned at him. “Yes. It is.”

“There’s really no fooling you, is there?” he said, a slight smile playing around the very corners of his mouth.

She shook her head, and grinned wider. Whatever it was that had happened seemed to have distracted him from the morning’s unsettling start, and in her mind, that could only be a good thing.

Madam Vastra cleared her throat delicately. “Perhaps you might tell us all what has happened, since it has clearly affected you greatly.”

“Ah,” said Narvin, blinking rapidly and stepping away from Leela, placing his arms behind his back and adopting a serious stance that would not have looked out of place in a CIA mission briefing.

He surveyed the room, his gaze lingering on each of the two humans and the Silurian, before nodding to himself slightly and clearing his throat. “I have been sent on a wild goose chase,” he said. “Fortunately, I found the goose.”

Leela frowned at him in complete incomprehension. “Narvin? What goose?”

He grinned at her, his eyes shining with a rare spark she had not seen within him for quite some time. “It’s a metaphorical goose,” he said, but before he could say anything else, he was interrupted by Vastra, whose attention had been caught by something on the street outside.

“We appear to have gained an extra lamppost,” she commented mildly, rising to her feet and crossing the room to peer through the net curtains at the street outside.

Narvin’s grin grew wider, and he raised his eyebrows at Leela expectantly. She narrowed her eyes at him, and crossed the room to join Madam Vastra. Leela looked out the window, and sure enough, there was a lamppost standing directly outside the house. It was an innocent, perfectly ordinary looking lamppost, no different from the others in the street – except for the fact that it had not been there this morning.

Leela turned slowly, and met Narvin’s gaze. He nodded, answering her questions before she had even found the words for them.

“We can go, Leela, we can leave. It’s a TARDIS.”

Leela stared at him, her eyes wide. "We... we can leave?”

He nodded again, and crossed the room to be at her side. “We can leave. I’ve run a full diagnostic of all systems, and so far, the ship seems to be fully functional. It’s only a Type 70, so it’s a bit dated, but that doesn’t matter. It’s a TARDIS, and it seems more than willing to work with me. We can leave, Leela, we can-”

“We can find Romana.”

“Yes,” he said softly, “We can find Romana.”

A TARDIS. A real, working TARDIS.

It was much hoped for, much longed for, and most sudden and unexpected in its arrival. After all this time, they were finally free to go. It was too much to take in.

Leela reached for him, gripping his arms tightly, as if anchoring herself in reality. He did the same in return, and gazed at her intently.

“How?” she whispered, shaking her head in a daze, “How is this possible?”

“That was going to be my next question,” Vastra remarked, and moved away from the window to perch on the arm of her chair, which Jenny was now sitting in. Jenny took her hand, curling her fingers around her wife’s, frowning at Leela and Narvin apprehensively.

Narvin shook his head and scowled, letting go of Leela so he could crossly pace the room. “I received an insufferably smug note, addressed to me, not to Neville, telling me that St. James’ Park had gained one extra tree. I’ve spent the day searching for it.”

Jenny squinted at him, frowning. “How can a note be ‘insufferably smug’?”

Narvin sniffed. “It’s all in the handwriting.”

Leela raised an eyebrow. “Braxiatel?”

He nodded. “I believe so.”

Leela scowled. “He is making this difficult for us on purpose. Is it a part of his plan?”

“Most likely for his own amusement,” Narvin said dryly, and stopped his pacing with a huff.

“It matters not. We will find him, after we have found Romana.”

Narvin’s brow creased, and he looked away, but not before Leela had caught sight of the glimmer of uncertainty in his eyes. She knew he doubted that they would ever see Romana again. Though he had tried to hide this fact from her, no doubt not wanting to dampen her hopes, she knew he did not truly think it possible that they would have any success in discovering her fate, let alone finding her.

She reached out to take his hand, and squeezed it reassuringly. His gaze flickered to Vastra and Jenny, and he twitched, clearly resisting the urge to shuffle awkwardly on the spot, before squeezing her hand in return and giving her a small half-smile.

“We will find her, Narvin,” she said softly, stroking his thumb, “We must.”

He nodded, once, but stayed silent, gazing at her in hope and fear, worry and relief in equal measure.

There was a silence. Jenny studied them both closely, her forehead creased. “How soon will you leave?” she asked quietly.

Narvin let go of Leela’s hand, stepping backwards so he could see Jenny and Vastra as well as Leela. “As soon as possible,” he said, “now we have a TARDIS, it is clear that the next stage in Braxiatel’s plan, whatever that may be, is in motion. We have stayed here for long enough.”

“Yes,” Leela said, “We must leave soon. But we cannot leave today.”

“No?” Narvin looked at her quizzically. “Why ever not?”

“We cannot just leave this place, Narvin, we have had lives here. Yes, I agree we have been here too long, and we should leave, as soon as we can. But there are things we must do first.”

“Such as?”

“I must say goodbye to Jago and Litefoot. And Ellie, too. And I must tell Mr Collins I cannot work for him anymore.”

“Of course. Now you mention it, there are other preparations that must be made. I searched the TARDIS quite thoroughly, and it doesn’t appear to have any sort of wardrobe, so we will need to pack what clothing we have here. It does have a fully functional food machine, but-“

Leela pulled a face at him, disgusted. “I will not eat the pretend food that comes out of _that_!”

Narvin raised an eyebrow. “I know. Which is why, as I was about to say before you interrupted me, we’ll need to pack the contents of the kitchen as well. We can’t have you going hungry now, can we?”

Leela backed down, satisfied. “Hmm. That will not last, though.”

“I know. Fortunately, there seems to be some sort of currency-creating device on board – I’m not entirely sure how it works yet, I’ll have to take another look at it, but it seems to use information from the main scanners to assess what the local currency is and supply us with an adequate amount. Which means we’ll be able to stop off at any market you choose, and you can buy whatever revolting alien foods you set your heart upon.”

Leela grinned. “I am delighted to hear it.”

He smiled at her crookedly. “I thought you might be. So… would saying we leave tomorrow evening give you enough time to say your goodbyes?”

She nodded. “Yes, it would.”

“Then we leave tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” said Vastra softly, “then this is goodbye.”

“Yeah,” said Jenny, “I suppose it is. Come back and visit us, won’t you? We’d like it if you did that.”

Silence fell heavily upon the room, Leela and Narvin staring at each other, silently acknowledging that in leaving this place, a place that had so often felt like a prison but at other times, had seemed a place of safety too; in escaping the roles Braxiatel had carved from them when he obscured their memories, they would also have to leave the company of their friends, old and new.

The silence was shattered by a distraction in the form of Strax, who thundered purposefully into the room carrying a tea tray piled high with a steaming tea pot and several trembling mugs.

“Yes,” Leela said softly, “This is goodbye. Thank you, my friends. For everything. I will miss you.”

“I overheard your conversation from the kitchen, and I must inform you that you cannot go without drinking your tea,” Strax said threateningly, “Otherwise I will be forced to vaporise you.” He held up the teapot with a menacing air.

Narvin blinked in alarm. He still had not got used to the Sontaran’s strange mannerisms, which frequently left him bewildered, even now.

Leela smiled. “Of course, my friend. We will stay for tea.”

“But-” Narvin protested, looking mildly agonised.

Leela rolled her eyes in fond despair. “It is a time machine, Narvin. We have waited so long for this, and we have already decided we will leave later tomorrow. An extra half an hour spent with friends is not a delay.” Leela sat down, and let Strax pour her tea.

Narvin paused, frowning, before shrugging one shoulder and taking the seat next to hers. “Ah. Yes. I suppose you are right. As you say, we have a TARDIS. Delaying our preparations for departure is unlikely to make much of a difference.”

Leela placed a hand on his shoulder. “Yes. Tomorrow, we leave. Tomorrow, we say goodbye to our home, and to the lives of Lily and Neville, and begin our search for Romana, but today, we shall spend the last of our time here with our friends.”

Narvin nodded, and smiled weakly at her, before his gazed drifted and he began side-eyeing the teapot.

Vastra narrowed her eyes at him, smiling faintly. “Strax? After all of today’s excitement, I think our resident Time Lord is in dire need of a cup of tea.”

* * *

The sign on the watchmaker’s shop door read ‘closed’. It would not say anything else, now.

Narvin was kneeling on the bedroom floor, packing their clothing. He carefully folded the last of his shirts and placed it neatly in the suitcase with the others. That was the last of his things packed, but he had a feeling Leela’s would take longer. The blouses would be simple enough, but due to the long skirts she seemed to be expected to wear, a great deal of it was likely to be bulky and awkward to pack. He still didn’t understand the baffling rules of the local clothing conventions; much of the fuss over fashions, or over who was permitted to wear trousers instead of skirts and vice versa seemed a bewildering and utterly pointless waste of time (Why couldn’t everyone wear robes instead? That would be far more practical, surely?). He reached for the first of her blouses and continued packing, eyeing the waiting garments in the wardrobe with despair.

Leela had seemed apprehensive when she had left for the bakery this morning. Narvin wasn’t surprised. She had grown to respect Mr Collins over the course of their time here, incidents involving food fights with rival bakers notwithstanding.

They had said their farewells to Mr Jago, Professor Litefoot, and Miss Higgins the previous evening, at the detectives’ old haunt, the Red Tavern. Narvin, who up until that point had studiously avoided visiting that particular establishment, had found the surroundings to be uncomfortable, to say the least, and so he had stayed long enough to be polite, before saying goodbye, and returning to the peace and solitude their home provided. The place had been too rowdy, too noisy, too full of people, too _much_ , and on top of that, it had smelled of human sweat, and tobacco smoke, and ancient, stale beer.

Leela had stayed, of course. She was far closer to Jago, Litefoot and Ellie than he was, because she had known them much longer, and so had needed more time to say goodbye.

Narvin did not know what had been said, in the hours after he had left, but when Leela had returned home she had seemed rather downhearted, and slightly on the tipsy side (though Narvin suspected the latter may have been the fault of Mr Jago, not their impending departure). That night, they had lain awake for some time, neither of them able to sleep, Leela curled tightly around him in a warm, protective sprawl of limbs.

He reached for another blouse and started folding it. It was a relief to be finally able to leave, that went without saying. They had both felt trapped here, for various reasons that had gone far beyond the simple lack of adequate escape route. Yes, it was a relief to finally have a way out of here, but now they were free to do what they had longed for, to go out into the universe and discover Romana’s fate, and find Romana herself, if they could, the enormity of the task ahead of them was only just beginning to dawn on him, and as it did, his initial excitement at the arrival of the TARDIS began to fade.

He hadn’t dared give himself permission to start planning how they might go about finding Romana, before now, but ever since he had located the TARDIS, he had started to consider ways they might go about their search, quietly analysing the various possible avenues they might explore. So far, it did not look promising. The more he thought about it, the more apprehensive about their impending search he became. Narvin knew, and though she avoided mentioning the possibility, he knew Leela knew too, that Romana’s chances of survival had been incredibly slim.

The shop door sounded downstairs, the bell above the door ringing with its bright jangling chime, and Narvin sat back on his heels, his mouth curling upwards at the corners, all thoughts of their task ahead evaporating. The shop was closed. There was only one person it could possibly be.

He stood up, put down the mismatched woollen stockings he was holding (Leela never bothered to keep them in their correct pairs, a habit that drove him to distraction), and crossed the room, pausing in the doorway as light, graceful footsteps made their way up the stairs. They grew nearer, and then Leela appeared, smiling tiredly when she saw him waiting.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello.” She covered the short distance between them swiftly, and kissed him, her hands slipping around the back of her neck as she pulled him closer. He relaxed into the kiss, his hands settling loosely on her waist.

After a few moments, he broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against hers. “Are you alright?” he murmured softly.

She pulled away a little so she could meet his eyes, and nodded with a slight smile. “I am. Thank you. Although…” A mischievous glint entered her gaze. “ _You_ are not alright.”

Narvin frowned. “I- what? I’m not?”

She shook her head solemnly. “No. You, _Neville_ , are gravely ill. Or at least, Mr Collins now thinks you are.”

Narvin exhaled in relief. “Ah. You finally settled on a cover story?”

“Yes. You have been in very poor health for some time. I have not mentioned it to Mr Collins because I have been too worried to speak of it. Now, we are going to the coast in the hope that the sea air will help you recover. It is likely we may never return.”

“Ah. Yes. That works rather well, actually. Did you specify which part of the coast?”

“No, and he did not think to ask.”

“Excellent.”

She nodded, and let her hands drop from his neck, sliding one hand down his arm so she could slip her fingers between his, and gently tugged him towards the kitchen. Something banged against his side, and he noticed that her bag looked considerably bulkier than it had done when she had left.

“What _exactly_ have you got in your bag?”

She grinned at him, and placed it on the kitchen table. From its depths, she produced a metal cake tin, which rattled ominously.

He raised an eyebrow. “A parting gift?”

She nodded, her smile fading as a sliver of sadness settled upon the crease in her brow. As he had suspected, and as he had worried, the simple act of them leaving was proving more difficult than initially anticipated.

She took the lid off of the tin. It contained a large number of currant buns.

Narvin smiled sadly, lost for a moment in someone else’s memories, and squeezed her hand. “Lily’s favourite.”

“Yes. He gave me the recipe.”

Narvin blinked at her, surprised. “I thought it was a carefully guarded secret?”

“Oh, it is. I am the exception, it seems.”

“Lily made a good impression. Do you think you’ll be able to make them without burning anything?”

She pulled a face at him, and he raised his eyebrows at her, the ghosts of her many kitchen-related disasters floating unmentioned between them. How she had survived working in a bakery for so long was utterly mystifying. Narvin supposed it was fortunate she had never been particularly involved in the actual baking process.

She put the lid back on the tin. “How is the packing going?”

“I’m getting there, slowly, but there’s a lot still to do. Would you mind sorting the food?”

“I can do that.” She gazed slowly around the room, and then her eyes settled decisively on the mantelpiece. “There is something else we must not forget to take with us.”

He followed her gaze to the photograph taken on Lily and Neville’s wedding day. “Of course. On that note, I should probably dig out the notebooks and index cards they used to record their dreams – they’re not something I want left lying around.”

He crossed the room, skirting around the TARDIS he’d parked in the middle of it, and picked up the photograph, staring into their faces, noticing yet again how their eyes were lit up with joy. They owed it to the people they had been to remember them. And besides, it was the only photograph they had of both of them together, even if they had believed themselves to be other people at the time it was taken. Not that Narvin was prone to sentimentality, of course.

After all, he was – or rather, he had been – a high-ranking member of the Celestial Intervention Agency. Getting sentimental and indulging in generally warm feelings for others had been a pointless risk that could skew one’s perceptions and judgement – something that was potentially fatal when paired with the ability to control, travel, and manipulate Time. Narvin was more aware of the risks of sentimentality than anyone.

However, if he were brutally honest with himself, he had to admit that he had started losing his battle against the Leela-related kind of sentimentality a _long_ time ago. If he had his timelines right, which of course he always did, and if he recalled events correctly, which of course he had, this had coincidentally happened around the time that Leela had, in the middle of an argument, shoved him against a wall and kissed him senseless.

Well. Given how willing he had been to kiss her in return – once he’d got over the shock, anyway – perhaps he had lost that particular battle some time before that. At the time, he’d fought a quiet private battle with himself, his newfound jumble of feelings, fierce and confusing, exhilarating and overwhelming, and distractingly pleasant, against his need to maintain order, to prevent himself from gaining any weakness that could be easily exploited or fatally alter his judgement.

But he wasn’t CIA anymore. He wasn’t significant or important to anyone, except Leela. Given their circumstances, he felt he was justified in indulging in a little sentimentality where Leela was concerned. After all, they _were_ married. Technically.

A gentle nudge at his side brought him back to the present. Leela stood at his side, her hand resting lightly on his waist, her brow furrowed in concern. Narvin blinked, surprised. He hadn’t even heard her move.

“Narvin?”

“Yes?”

“Are you alright?”

“I… yes. I just got a bit… distracted.”

Leela nodded understandingly. “Is anything bothering you?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing’s bothering me, as such. I was just… thinking. About you, about us, about the past. About all of _this_.” He gestured around the room, to the window, and to all that lay beyond it, before letting his hand drop uselessly to his side.

“Oh. I thought perhaps your dream from yesterday troubled you still,” she said quietly, laying her free hand on his arm.

“Oh. No.”

“No?”

“The thought of losing you always troubles me. That dream simply exaggerated it in a way I found disturbing, but that has faded now. I’ve been so preoccupied with our newfound freedom, I haven’t had the time to dwell on it.”

Her grip on his arm and waist tightened. “Oh, Narvin.”

He turned away, not wanting her to see his face. She could read him all too easily now, and he didn’t want her to see the truth, which was that in the moments when his focus strayed from the matter of their imminent departure, and what awaited them out across the stars, the image of Leela being scattered into nothingness had repeatedly swam into his vision, taunting him with an unnerving sense of inevitability.

He cleared his throat. “We should finish packing, if we’re still planning on leaving this evening.”

He felt her hands brush against his, and she gently tugged the photograph out of his grasp, and put it temporarily back on the mantelpiece. He let her tangle their fingers together, and knew that she wasn’t at all fooled by his false calm. Truthfully, he hadn’t expected her to be. They knew one another far too well to be able to fully conceal their emotions from each other.

“We will be alright, Narvin,” she said quietly, “It is not easy, I know that as well as you. There will be times when the past becomes too much. But we will _not_ let it win. We will not let it steal each other away. Not now. Not after everything. We _will_ be alright.”

He turned back to her, and held one of her hands tighter, letting go of the other so he could reach out to cup her face, and leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. “I know.”

***

Day fell into evening, evening fell into night. The sky shifted above the hazy city air, becoming indigo, becoming purple, becoming inky black and dotted with stars. In the watchmaker’s shop, a hush descended, punctuated, as always, by the quiet, constant ticking of the remaining clocks. One day, they would all begin to wind down, one after the other, until the shop would be truly silent, empty and abandoned and gathering dust, an old curiosity forgotten by all save the two who now turned their backs on it, their sights set firmly upon distant stars.

The flat above the shop was already silent and still. It was empty, cleared of all personal effects, all signs that it had recently been lived in had been erased. The cupboards were bare, the wardrobe was empty, and there was a space upon the mantelpiece, where a photograph once stood. All that remained was a scattering of furniture, an assortment of books left discarded and forgotten on their shelves, and an out-of-place but otherwise ordinary cupboard, standing in the very centre of the living room.

Inside the ‘cupboard’, Narvin was alone in the TARDIS console room. He stood still, staring at the central console, with its array of buttons, switches, levers and lights, and at the gleaming white walls with multiple roundels, each pulsing gently with a soft golden-white light. He was listening too, to the quiet background hum of the TARDIS. He’d never noticed that sound before, but was now coming to realise just how much he’d missed it. The hum sounded expectant, somehow, as if it too was waiting, eager to leave.

If he concentrated, he could feel the TARDIS’ sentience hovering at the fringes of his consciousness, nudging at him cautiously. He couldn’t be certain, but it seemed… lonely. His analysis of the ship’s records indicated the TARDIS had been in the beginnings of the decommissioning process, its consciousness carefully separated from that of its previous owner, before it had been promptly stolen, thus preventing the rest of the process from taking place. This, he thought, was fortunate, because it meant that none of the databases, logs, or other stores of information had been deleted, something that would no doubt prove highly beneficial in the long run.

He looked up at the sound of footsteps approaching from one of the three corridors that branched off of the console room. Leela paused in the arch-like entrance to the middle corridor, and leaned against the wall.

“Is the TARDIS ready?” she asked, folding her arms loosely.

He nodded. “Yes. All systems are operating within optimal safety parameters, and all diagnostic scans are complete. We’re ready to go.”

She smiled, pushing herself off of the wall, and crossed the room to stand by his side. Her hair was loose about her shoulders; no longer pinned into place, it flowed untamed and free. She had changed her clothing, too. Though she was still wearing the same blouse as before, she had replaced her skirt with what looked suspiciously like a pair of his trousers. They were too big for her though, so they were rolled up at the ankle, and she was wearing his braces to hold them up. He refrained from protesting against this blatant and unapologetic thievery, however, as the overall affect was rather pleasing.

“There is nothing else that needs doing?”

“No.”

She stared at the central column, then turned back to meet his gaze. “Then let’s go.”

Narvin nodded, and began the pre-flight sequences, his fingers trembling as he moved them carefully across the console. They were leaving. They were really leaving.

He paused, his hands frozen inches from the console. There was only one thing left to do, now. All he had to do was to pull down on that lever, and they could finally leave this place behind forever. They had wanted little else since the moment they had got their memories back. The TARDIS was ready to go. Leela was ready to go. Narvin was more than ready to go, and he had been for quite some time. And yet his hands still hovered away from the lever.

A brush against his elbow startled him, and he turned. Leela’s fingers were slowly circling around his arm, and she was staring at him in concern.

“Narvin? You hesitate.”

“It… it would seem that way, yes.”

“I will not ask why, for I think I already know.”

He raised his eyebrows, but stayed silent. Once, this would have been the point where he would have made a sarcastic comment, one that conveyed just how much he doubted her levels of intelligence, her ability to accurately assess his character. Once. But not anymore. He hadn’t been that person for quite some time.

She stroked his arm, and continued. “Though we did not wish for it, this place has become our home. It has been our home, a place of safety. We both know that wherever we are going, there will be dangers. We do not know what has happened to the universe since the end of the War. And if Romana is out there, somewhere, she will probably not be safe. That is why you hesitate, even if you do not know it. We are leaving a safe and familiar place for unknown places instead. That is… daunting.”

He let her take his hands, and she kissed his knuckles, slowly pressing her lips to each one, whilst gently caressing his fingers with her thumb. When she straightened, her expression was soft, but underwritten with a steely determination that, paired with her gaze, was so intense he took half a step backwards, as if she had stolen the breath right out of his lungs.

“This place and time is our home no longer, Narvin. We are both here, in this TARDIS. We have each other. We are not alone. _This_ is our home now, Narvin. This is our place of safety, because this is where we both now live. Together. My home is with you.”

He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly against his chest. “And my home is where you are,” he murmured softly, “but… what if we never find her? The chances of us finding Romana, or even simply learning what might have happened to her, are incalculably small. What hope do we have, truly?”

She pulled back and looked him sharply in the eye. “Do not say that. There is still a chance. And if we do not look for her, if we decide that she is a ‘lost cause’, then we will never forgive ourselves.”

Narvin swallowed. She was right, of course. There would be no hope of success if they never even started their search. They were most certainly doomed to fail, but they couldn’t stay where they were for ever. They had to move on. They had to try.

He let go of her and turned to face the console. The lights in the console room seemed to brighten, as if the ship knew their departure was imminent.

“We will do it together, Narvin.” Leela raised her hands and placed them on the lever.

He nodded, once, and wrapped his hands around hers. He met her gaze, and she smiled at him, her eyes bright with the reflected lights of the TARDIS. The golden-white light of the roundels seemed to have settled upon her, making her look as if she was glowing. He managed a crooked almost-smile, his hearts hammering far too fast, and she smiled even wider.

She raised an eyebrow, questioning, and he nodded, squeezing her hands. Together, they pulled the lever down. The engines roared to life, the central column began its slow movement up and down through the centuries, and in the empty flat above an unremarkable London watchmaker’s shop, an out-of-place but seemingly ordinary cupboard faded in and out of existence, before finally disappearing forever.

They were gone. The universe was calling.


	2. A Warrior No More

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now that TW3 has been released, I'm just going to say this diverges from the events in the audios at some point after TW2, as I planned it and started writing it before TW3 came along, the main difference being that Romana and Narvin never find Leela whilst off on their travels (and That Ending Scene - you know the one - never happens...)

Leela ran down the TARDIS corridors, her breaths coming in steady puffs between footfalls. After leaving London, they had travelled through the vortex for a while, going nowhere in particular, just as long as it was somewhere else. They eventually parked the TARDIS near an unremarkable, uninhabited backwater planet, far from Earth, and now they were drifting, with no destination in mind, not yet.

They had a free evening, and would begin their search for Romana tomorrow – or at least, on what passed for ‘tomorrow’ on board a TARDIS. It was, after all, technically the end of a long and busy day, and neither of them had slept much the night before, and so over dinner (which had taken far too long to cook, according to Narvin, who had complained at length about the inefficiency of the oven), they had agreed that they would postpone the start of their search until they had both had a decent night’s sleep.

Of course, upon deciding they both needed rest, neither of them had actually gone to bed.

Narvin currently had his head buried in circuits, muttering something incomprehensible about TARDIS engineering, which Leela thought was probably unnecessary given how he had said that everything was working, but he seemed content enough, despite the muttering, so she decided not to question it.

Whilst he tinkered away, half hidden in the guts of the central console, Leela ran around the TARDIS corridors. They seemed much shorter and less complicated than the ones on the Doctor’s TARDIS had been, so much more closed-in and oppressive feeling, and there was not much to explore, as Narvin had programmed the bare minimum of rooms. Leela was strongly tempted to ask him to add a swimming pool, just to see his reaction.

There were three main corridors that led away from the console room. The one on the right was of little interest to her, as it only led to the engine room and other similarly boring places, so she had largely ignored it. The middle corridor and the one on the left were linked together, in a sort of wonky triangle, with the console room, their bedroom (which had a bathroom attached), and the workroom near the corners, with the kitchen in the middle.

And so Leela ran, from the console room, down the middle corridor, past the medical bay (which also had a door leading directly into the console room, in case of emergencies), past the kitchen, round the corner next to the corridor that led to their room, across to the workshop that Narvin had claimed for himself, and down the left-hand corridor to the console room again. And round and round she went.

It was understated and boringly minimal, in Leela’s opinion, and not particularly home-like. Whilst the triangle of corridors did make a reasonably useful circuit for her to jog around, it was not quite enough, given how short they were. When she had been travelling with the Doctor, she had felt she could run for days down the seemingly endless corridors of his TARDIS, never passing the same place twice. Here, the circuit was so small, she was surprised she had not got dizzy yet.

Also, she could not help but feel there was a distinct lack of living spaces. They had the kitchen and their bedroom, but beyond that there wasn’t anywhere they could relax between rescue attempts, or escapes from marauding hordes, or whatever else awaited them on their search. She had told Narvin her feelings on the matter as they had eaten dinner, also pointing out the fact that if he had a workshop, then it was only fair she had somewhere to exercise, especially no she no longer had Jenny and Strax to spar with. Beyond reminding her that the workshop had already been there to begin with, he hadn’t really been able to argue with that.

Leela entered the console room once more, and came to a rest, breathing heavily. Narvin now had a floor hatch beside the console open, and was kneeling on the floor, leaning down inside it, which gave Leela a rather pleasing view of his behind. She leant against the wall and watched him for a while, listening to the muffled thuds and mumbles echoing out of the hatch.

She soon realised that he was completely absorbed in whatever it was he was doing, and probably hadn’t heard her come in anyway. She smiled, silently walked over to him, and gave a loud and purposeful cough.

He yelped, jerked upwards, and hit his head on the edge of the hatch. He looked up at her, wincing.

“Was that really necessary?”

“Yes. You were very busy. It was the only way of getting your attention.”

He closed the hatch and stood up, wiping his hands on a cloth, which he neatly folded and placed in a space at the top of an open tool box.

“Was your run satisfactory?”

She shrugged. “I am surprised I have not got dizzy, running in so many small circles like that.”

He sighed. “For the last time, the corridors are not short. They’re at an ideal length to maintain maximum efficiency.”

Leela shook her head in despair. “What is the point of having a ship that is bigger on the inside when all you do is try to think of new ways of making it smaller and smaller?”

“Your perceptions of what a TARDIS should be like have been vastly skewed by your time spent aboard that utter monstrosity the Doctor flew about in,” he said dryly.

She snorted softly, and gave him a sly grin, leaning casually against the console. “At least the Doctor had a swimming pool.”

“A swimming pool,” Narvin repeated flatly.

“Yes. It had an inflatable frog in it.”

“An inflatable frog.”

“Mm-hm. And it had plastic chairs around the outside, for boring people who did not wish to swim. Andred threw one at a Sontaran, once.”

Narvin looked both unimpressed and mildly horrified, which was quite the achievement, even for him. “We are _not_ getting a… a _swimming pool!_ That’s… that’s a wholly unnecessary waste of space and resources that would be of far more use elsewhere!”

She pouted at him. “You are no fun.”

“Hmm. Since we’re on the subject, have you any more complaints?”

“Yes. I do not like the look of our bedroom.”

He sighed. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It is terrible! It is nothing more than a soulless box!”

He gave her a long look of fond despair. “There’s just no pleasing you sometimes, is there?”

“That is not true,” she said, leaning closer to him, “I found myself very pleased when I came in here.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Well, with you leaning over the hatch like that, I was treated to such a lovely view of your behind.”

“ _Leela!_ ” Narvin went bright red and started to splutter at her wordlessly.

She grinned, delighted. It was reassuring to know that she could still leave him a blushing wreck, even now, after all their time together.

After spluttering at her some more, he managed to compose himself, clearing his throat and turning his attention to the console, where he started fiddling with a few of the dials. The blush on his face had subsided, but the tips of his ears still glowed wonderfully pink.

“Hm. Well. Anyway.” He pulled the main lever, and the hum of the TARDIS changed. They were no longer drifting, but in flight.

“Where are we going? I thought we agreed we would not start our search until the morning?”

“And so we did. This is something different. I’m taking you to see one of the wonders of the universe – or at least, it is one, but only depending on who you ask.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the many different space-faring lifeforms have all come up with their own so-called ‘Official and Definitive’ lists of the Wonders of the Universe, most of which are vastly at odds with all the other lists, depending on what each culture values, and most of the places on these lists are limited to the confines of their respective galaxies. Not what I would call definitive. However, what we are going to see features on several.”

“I see. But I do not know _why_ you are taking me to see it.”

“Ah. Well.” His ears glowed redder again. “Think of it as, ah, a… a romantic gesture, if you like.” He avoided her gaze, and carefully adjusted one of the controls by about a millimetre. “A moment of peace before we deal with whatever it is that’s facing us.”

Leela stared at him, her entire being going soft. “You are trying to please me.”

“I-” He cleared his throat. “Yes. I suppose you could put it like that.”

She raised a hand to his cheek and turned his face towards hers. “Thank you,” she said softly, “you have already achieved your goal.”

“But… we’re not there yet.”

She ran her thumb over his cheekbone. “That does not matter.”

He stared at her, his eyes wide with that particular brand of Narvin-ish bewildered delight she so adored. She tugged him nearer, and came willingly, letting his hands rest on her waist as she kissed him.

They were interrupted by a shrill but oddly polite bleeping noise. He pulled back a little, resting his forehead against hers. “We’re here,” he murmured.

She reluctantly let go of him, and he returned his attention to the console. She pulled down the viewing screen and he frowned at her.

“Whilst we could watch it like that, the screen doesn’t quite convey the sheer scale and intensity of the phenomenon,” Narvin said, “the screen would dull it, compress it.”

She frowned at him. “How are we supposed to see this… this thing you wish to show me, this ‘wonder’, if we are not using the view screens? Are we going to land?”

“No, there’s nowhere _to_ land.” He tapped a few buttons. “Right, that’s the safety force-fields activated. Now, for the doors.”

“The… the doors?” Leela took a step back. A strange fluttering of unease had started deep within her, quiet, but as frantic as a caged bird.

“Yes. It’s the best way to see it. It’s perfectly safe, the force-fields will prevent us flying off and we’ll still be able to breathe. So, Leela. Welcome to the Fields of Skellor, also known as the Clouds of Iktra, or by dozens of other different names. It’s an unusual phenomenon, which is considered a Wonder of the Universe by approximately fifty-eight space-faring species.”

The fluttering in her chest had grown more panicked now, but before she could say anything, he pressed the button, and opened the doors.

Outside the TARDIS, great clouds of gases hung suspended in the void of empty space, their bright colours shifting and changing. It was striking, stunning, but Leela could barely see it at all. She could barely focus on anything, not on the view, not on Narvin, not on anything else within the control room. All she could see were the doors, wide open, the doors, the doors…

_The doors were open and yet they were still in flight, the doors were open and the ship was shaking, but the words spoken by the cheerful voice of her travelling companion were chillingly clear, audible even over the screaming winds of Time._

_The doors were open, beckoning with open arms to the writhing anger of the vortex beyond, the doors were open and the ship was shaking and she was slipping, losing her grip on the console, its cold metal unforgiving and hard against her hands. The doors were open, and he was laughing, and she was slipping, and the doors were open and she was losing her grip, and she was slipping and the ship was shaking and he was laughing, and she was slipping and slipping and the console was beyond her grasp and she was falling and she was falling and she was falling towards the waiting open doors, and she was screaming as she fell into the abyss, and she was falling and she was falling and she was falling through Time with his laugh still chasing her through the open doors and she was falling and –_

“Leela? _Leela!_ ”

She blinked. The noise of the vortex was gone. All she could hear was the quiet background hum of the TARDIS, _their_ TARDIS, and the soft whirring of the console’s machinery, and the soothing pulse of the central column. The room was bright, too bright, somehow whiter than usual, and there was Narvin, standing directly before her, framed by the void beyond him, his hands hovering over her shoulders, his eyes wide with worry.

“Leela.” He heaved a sigh of relief, and his quivering hands twitched nearer her face before gently settling upon her shoulders. He spoke quietly, frowning at her in concern. “Are you alright?”

She waited several moments before answering him, unable to speak, her breath shaky. Her hands trembled; she felt sick. Everything seemed too vivid, too bright. The gentle, feather-light pressure of his hands on her shoulders felt too solid, heavier than a Time Lord’s collar. She swallowed and tensed, hunching her shoulders. He understood what she meant without her having to say anything, and he let his hands fall away.

She still could not move her feet, still did not dare to look past him to the doors and what lay beyond.

“The doors,” she managed, despising how fragile she sounded, how un-warrior-like, “I cannot go near the doors. I will fall.”

His eyes widened, and he cursed, dashing back to the console and slamming his hand down on the door controls. The doors slid shut with a disappointed hiss.

Her knees gave way and she sank to the floor.

“Leela, I’m so sorry, that was stupid of me, I didn’t think-”

She violently shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut and pressing the heel of her hands against them in the hope of shutting out the light.

“No,” she whispered, her voice sounding harsh, like a stranger’s, “No, it is not your fault, Narvin, it is _not_ your fault, you could not have known I would- _I_ did not know I would react… would-”

“Oh Leela.”

She sensed movement, heard the rustle of fabric, and opened her eyes. He had dimmed the lights, and was kneeling beside her. She stared at her knees. She could not meet his gaze.

He did not say anything, simply sat beside her as she stared blankly at her knees, cold echoes of the Master’s last words to her still reverberating around her mind. That had been a long time ago, that fateful day; such a long time had passed, and so much had happened since. That day was over. It was in the past. So why was it affecting her now?

Her thoughts strayed to the other events of that day, and to the reason for their mission in the first place: a young man, who was one person and two people all at once, his life disrupted by Time. She remembered the words one of him had spat at her, harsh and angry. His words crawled from the past and combined with the memory of the vortex reaching out for her, and a dull realisation settled upon her shoulders, within the pit of her stomach, weighing her down; an inevitable realisation long delayed by age and memory loss and practice bouts and running round and round and round the corridors. Delayed, but not halted, for as she had learned in all her long years, nothing could be held off forever.

“I am no longer a warrior,” she said, her voice faint and distant, as if it were somehow cut off and separate from the rest of her.

“What?”

“I am no longer a warrior. That is clear now. When I was practising with Jenny and Strax, I could pretend that it is still what I am. But I am not. He said that, you know. Finnian Valentine. Said I was not a warrior anymore, that I was pathetic. At the time, I was angry. How dare he insult me that way, how dare he strike at the very heart of who I am? But now, I see that he was right. I have fought many battles, but now, I have been defeated by nothing more than a memory. I am a warrior no more.”

“Oh _Leela_ ,” Narvin exhaled softly, his voice wavering.

Hesitantly, she looked up to meet his gaze. His jaw was tensed, his lips were pressed together tightly, and his eyes looked watery. He was fighting back tears, she realised, and that made her feel even worse. She did not want him to cry because of her. Hadn’t he been through enough?

“Leela,” he said, his voice thick with repressed emotion, “Leela. You are, and always have been, the bravest person I know. _This_ doesn’t change that. Do you remember on the Axis, when Romana locked herself away after we lost Braxiatel?”

Leela nodded silently.

“I said she was moping, but you? You said it was her war wound. You were right. I see that now. And _this_ is your war wound. It is nothing to be ashamed of, and it doesn’t make you any less of a warrior… any less of a person, even. You yourself have said the same to me, so many times now. Why, just this afternoon _you_ said that sometimes the past is too much, but we won’t let it win. You have always said that even the bravest of warriors still have fears, and bad memories, and things they find difficult to face. And that doesn’t change who they are, doesn’t make them less than the person they used to be. _You_ taught me that.”

Leela blinked back the moisture from her own eyes. She was shaking. She was not sure how long she had been shaking, but now she had noticed it, she could not seem to stop. She looked away from him, stared out across the console room. With the lights dimmed, it seemed cold. Unfriendly. Sterile. Abandoned, almost. Nothing like the home she had said it would become, just a few hours earlier.

She turned back to Narvin. He was still watching her closely, his brow furrowed, his gaze steady, if still somewhat watery. There was kindness in that gaze, kindness and worry and concern and love, and _warmth_ too, more warmth than she had once thought him capable of, the warmth that the TARDIS was missing.

A large part of her wanted nothing more than to throw herself into his arms and let him hold her tightly, safe and secure, but an equally large part of her resisted, not yet ready for that much physical contact, still left open and bleeding and raw. Part of her wondered bleakly whether she had become more Gallifreyan, in the absence of her warrior’s heart.

But as she looked at Narvin, as she met the steady warmth held within his teary eyes, something broke through the haze of helplessness that had washed over her, and she tentatively reached out a hand, seeking his, searching for warmth. He turned his hand palm up, and waited for her to reach him.

She reached for him, and their fingertips brushed, and she paused, letting her fingers hover above his for a few moments before she let her hand settle in his. He curled his fingers slowly around hers, but loosely, so she could withdraw if she needed to.

But she did not need to, she discovered, and as the slow moments passed, she let her hand rest more firmly within his, more securely. Time went by, marked only by the hum of the central column, and the gentle stroke of Narvin’s thumb on her hand. The trembling slowly subsided, the sick feeling faded into the background, replaced and overwritten by a wave of bone-numbing weariness that seeped through her, leaving her limbs heavy and helpless.

“I am so tired,” she whispered, “but I do not know if I will be able to sleep.”

“There’s no harm in trying,” he murmured quietly, and stood up, still holding her hand, and gently helped her to her feet.

She leaned on him, and he tentatively put a hand to the small of her back. The urge to shake him off had faded; now, as exhaustion set in, she wanted nothing more than to be sleeping a dreamless and uninterrupted sleep in his arms.

He raised a questioning eyebrow, and she gave the slightest of nods. Arms around one another, leaning against each other, they left the console room and set off down the corridor towards their bedroom.


	3. The Search Begins

Leela blinked slowly awake. She felt sticky, disoriented, groggy; a combination of new surroundings, and a night spent tossing and turning restlessly until she was entangled in the duvet. It took her still-sleepy mind longer than it should have done to work out how to disentangle herself and find an escape route.

She sat up, her eyelids still heavy with the sleep that had eluded her, and ran a hand wearily through her hair, grimacing. It seemed to have spectacularly grown in volume overnight – no doubt thanks to all the tossing and turning.

The space in the bed next to hers was empty. She wondered how long Narvin had been up for. Given that the bedroom was lit with pretend daylight, it had probably been quite a while.

Leela sat on the edge of the bed, focusing on her breathing, giving herself the time she needed to properly wake up, whilst trying to figure out exactly what it was that she was feeling.

Old. She felt so, so old. She felt every one of her long, long years, even if she was physically young again. She did not always feel her age. Sometimes, she felt as young as she looked. But there were days when her long life had a way of creeping up on her, and this morning, she felt _old_.

She also felt oddly calm, as if the previous evening had happened in someone else’s dream, with her standing to the side, merely a casual observer.

But it _had_ happened. She had not been an observer, standing by, doing nothing, like a Time Lord watching the Universe go by; she had been an unwilling participant, and now she was no longer entirely certain of who she was supposed to be, beyond the persistent, nagging feeling that she was no longer a warrior.

All she knew was that she was now far removed from the young Warrior of the Sevateem who had travelled with the Doctor all those years ago. But if she no longer felt she had the right to call herself a warrior, then what was she instead? Who was Leela, if not a Warrior of the Sevateem?

She pushed the dark thoughts and uncomfortable questions aside, knowing it would be a long time before she answered them, if she ever even answered them at all, and concentrated instead on the day ahead. Today, they would begin their search for Romana. They would take the TARDIS somewhere new, somewhere most likely unknown to them, and if they were very, very fortunate, they would find their much-missed friend.

Leela nodded to herself, letting the determination to find Romana fill her up and override – for the moment, at least – all other worries. She stood up, stretched, and padded off to investigate the quality of the shower.

*

Feeling refreshed, considerably more alert, and a reasonable degree younger after standing under a fast-moving high-pressured stream of wonderfully hot water for far longer than was strictly necessary, she wandered off to find Narvin. She found him in the kitchen, staring intently at the oven timer. He was covered in flour. Leela frowned. She was sure the oven had looked different yesterday. It seemed… shinier. And all the buttons were in different places.

“Ah, Leela,” Narvin said, still squinting at the oven, “there’s a pot of tea on the table, it should still be hot.”

“Thank you.”

Leela poured herself a cup of tea and watched him, concerned. “Narvin… what are you doing?”

“Making sure I get the timings exactly right.”

“I see.” Leela glanced around, noting the near-empty bag of flour, and the mixing bowl sitting neatly upside down on the draining board. “Have you been baking?”

“Yes. I have.”

“At this time in the morning?”

“Morning? Leela, it’s practically afternoon.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Hmm. Ah!” The oven timer went off, and he scrambled to snatch up a pair of oven gloves, fumbling as he put them on and yanked open the oven, reaching inside to produce a tray of almost perfect currant buns.

_Almost_ perfect, because although the first two rows were golden brown, the back row resembled nothing more than four sad lumps of charcoal.

Narvin’s face sank dejectedly, and Leela knew he was fixating on the burned ones over the ones that had turned out well.

“You have made current buns!” she said delightedly, in the feeble hope of distracting him from the charcoal, “You have tried Mr Collins’ recipe?”

“Yes, for all the good it did. Just look at that! They’re ruined! It should have worked, I followed the recipe exactly! And this is a brand new oven too, a top-of-the-range Cal-Air 4000! This shouldn’t have happened!”

Leela stared at him, bewildered. “Narvin, did you buy a new oven whilst I was asleep?”

“I… ah. Yes.”

“ _Why?_ ”

He sniffed. “The old one was inefficient. And Caltron _do_ make truly spectacular ovens.”

Leela was at a loss for words. Whilst it was true that she had seen Narvin get worked up over many things over the years, seeing him get overly impassioned about kitchen appliances was certainly a first.

“Well, it was a waste of effort, it seems. I needn’t have bothered. Just look at that. Burned to a crisp.” He poked one of the blackened lumps experimentally and it crumbled into a woeful heap of dust.

Leela smiled sadly. She strongly suspected she knew exactly what his reasons for baking were – to please her, to cheer her up, to provide a distraction – and so, she knew why it was that he was disappointed with the results, and why it was he would have been disappointed if even only one of the buns had shown the tiniest hint of being burned.

“Never mind those ones, Narvin. This was only the first attempt. The others look wonderful.”

“But a third of them are burned!”

“And the other two thirds are not – they look perfect. They look as good as, or perhaps even better than, Mr Collins’.”

He raised an eyebrow at her sceptically. “Really?”

“ _Yes_. Not just because they look perfectly cooked, but because I know the care and attention that has gone into making them, the effort, the thought. You have made them to try to make me feel better, to show you care. _Thank you_ , Narvin, my love.” She crossed the room, took the tray from his hands, placed it on the table, and hugged him tightly.

“Ow!”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, Narvin, you are in pain. What is it?”

“It’s… it’s nothing, really.”

“ _Narvin._ ”

“It’s just… my ribs are little sore. That’s all.”

“What?” Leela stepped back and scrutinised him closely, holding him at arm’s length. “Why are your ribs sore? What have you been _doing?_ ”

“Ah. Well. Um.”

“Narvin?”

He sighed. “You were very… restless, last night. When you were asleep, I mean. And… um… Even whilst asleep, you have very powerful elbows. You… er… may have mistaken me for whatever it was you were fighting in your dreams.”

“Oh.” Her heart sank, and her gut twisted painfully. “Oh no. Oh Narvin, I am so sorry.”

“It’s alright, Leela, truly. It’s not that bad.”

“No, Narvin, it _is_. I am sorry. I do not remember what I was dreaming about. I do not remember having any dreams at all.”

“Don’t apologise, please. You couldn’t help it, it really wasn’t your fault.”

“All the same, I am sorry. Is that why you got up so early?”

“No. Well, not completely. I really did want to buy a new oven.” He frowned distractedly, his eyes lighting up as they did when he had had an idea. “You know, it does seem odd that it was only the back row that burned… I wonder whether the oven had a bad reaction to the temporal fields of the TARDIS. I’ll have to have a look at it later.”

Leela snorted, and shook her head at him fondly, marvelling at the sudden change in the direction of the conversation, whilst also glad of it. “That is ridiculous. _You_ are ridiculous.”

“So you keep telling me.”

“That is because it is true.”

“Charming,” he muttered.

She smiled, and put a hand gently to his waist and rested her forehead against his. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer as he relaxed against her. He was still wearing his oven gloves, she realised, and for some reason that made her smile even more.

“How are you feeling, this morning?” he asked softly.

She sighed. “I… do not know. Better, but… off. I am fine, mostly, but then quietly in the background I am not quite right. It is there, and then it isn’t, and then it is there again.”

“I know exactly what you mean. Are you feeling well enough to begin our search, or would you like more time to recuperate before we start?”

“No! No, I do not need more time. I would like to start as soon as we can. I need to be doing something, Narvin, _anything_ that is not running around in circles. Starting looking for Romana is what we were going to do today, and so we shall do it.”

“Very well.” He stepped back and sat down. “Have something to eat first, though. You’ve not touched your tea yet.”

She joined him at the table, and helped herself to one of the (unburned) currant buns. It was still warm from the oven, and was every bit as good as anything Mr Collins had ever made. When she told him so, Narvin tried to hide his grin of relieved satisfaction, and failed.

As she ate, Narvin filled her in on the plan to find Romana so far. “The most obvious way of locating her would be to use her bio-data to track her down. Unfortunately, we don’t _have_ her bio-data, and we can’t simply pop back to Gallifrey and get it, so that rules that method out. So, I thought to make a start, we could use the TARDIS telepathic circuits – that’s what I was checking last night, in the console room. Although all my diagnostic scans showed that everything was in full working order, I still wanted to check things the old-fashioned way, just in case.”

“Oh. Will using these circuits take us straight to Romana?”

He sighed, and stared into the dregs of his tea. “I honestly don’t know. But we may as well try it, and if it doesn’t work, well, we’ll be able to rule it out and try something else.”

“What would that ‘something else’ be?”

He sighed again, and met her gaze, his expression bleak. “I don’t know.”

Leela nodded, frowning. “Then these circuits will have to work.”

He grimaced. “I certainly hope so.”

She reached across the table to take his hand. “We _will_ find her, Narvin. However long it takes.”

He gave her a tight smile, and squeezed her hand. “I know.”

* * *

The final systems check Narvin had been running completed with a satisfied beep just as Leela entered the console room, her hair pulled into a bun on the top of her head, her expression determined. She was still wearing his trousers.

“Ready?” he asked, scrutinising her carefully across the console.

“Yes. And there is no need to look quite so worried, Narvin. I am fine.”

“I know.”

“Hm.” She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously, but crossed to his side and kissed him on the cheek anyway.

“What happens now?”

“It’s quite simple, really. We put our hands flat against this panel here–” he gestured towards the bluish glassy square set into the console in front of them “–and we think of Romana.”

“Is that it? It seems too easy. When you say we must ‘think of Romana’…?” she trailed off and tilted her head at him quizzically.

“I mean just that: we think of Romana, and the TARDIS will be able to telepathically understand what we mean and convert it into meaningful coordinates. You must think of her, remember her, things you did together, how you felt about her, how she sounded, how she spoke, what made her angry, what made her laugh, how she took her tea, everything. Don’t just focus on the good things, either. You must remember everything you can, the good and the bad alike. I’ll be doing the same. Once she has enough information, the TARDIS will alert us and we can go wherever it is we’re going.”

“Very well. Is there anything else I should know before we start?”

Narvin thought about it. “It’s probably best our hands don’t touch whilst we’re remembering – if we get distracted by thoughts of each other, it would only confuse things.”

“I understand. But we will be in many of each other’s memories of Romana. Surely there is a risk that this will be a distraction too?”

“Quite possibly, yes. Remain focused on Romana above all else. There will be others in your memories. Ignore them. Let them fade into the background. Ignore me, ignore K-9, ignore Braxiatel, Andred, the Doctor, and everyone else. Focus only on Romana; bring her into the foreground of all your memories, all your thoughts. Together, we should be able to give the TARDIS enough data.”

She nodded, frowning.

“What is it?”

“It is nothing.”

“No, Leela, what is it?”

“All these things – they are memories. They are in the past. Will thinking of them not simply take us back to our own past, instead of to wherever she is now?”

He shook his head, and reached out to squeeze her shoulders in what he hoped came across as a reassuring manner. “No. I’ve set it all up so we won’t be taken back through our personal timelines. If it all works as it’s supposed to, and it will, it’ll take us back to the earliest point in the relative present, after the Time War, where our timelines all match up. Relatively.”

Leela nodded, although she still looked a little unconvinced. “Very well. Shall we begin?”

Narvin fiddled with some dials, and pressed the relevant buttons required to open up the telepathic circuits and confirm the connection with the navigational controls, and nodded. “I’m ready when you are.”

She gave a steely smile of grim determination and placed her hands on the panel, and closed her eyes. Narvin stepped to the side to avoid brushing against her, placed his hands beside hers, and let his eyes close too.

He took a deep breath, opened his mind, and let himself think of Romana.

He thought of that first, tense meeting, so long ago, held in the wake of Vansell’s death and Narvin’s ascension to Coordinator, and of how infuriating he had found her, in those early days, how he had gritted his teeth at each new progressive policy of hers, of how he had perceived the majority of her ideas back then as a threat to the future security of Gallifrey.

How much things had changed. He remembered the day he had willingly stood in front of a bomb to save her life, that day in the Panopticon, that pivotal moment which he had often thought had changed the course of his life forever.

He thought of all the times he had saved her, and all the times she had saved him. He thought of all the times she had infuriated him, frustrated him, and generally got on his nerves, leaving headaches and mountains of paperwork in her wake. He thought of her sheer stubbornness and unwillingness to change her mind, once it had been set. He thought of all the times he had annoyed her too, like that time in the Death Zone when they were going to find Leela and he had complained so much that Romana had let out a peculiarly charming screech of frustration.

He thought of her smile, and her sarcasm, and her low opinion of certain politicians, and of her frequent utterances that she couldn’t have become President if she had had turnips for brains. He thought of her incredibly irritating habit of making references to Earth culture he hadn’t a hope of understanding, and how he was certain that she and Braxiatel only ever did it to annoy him.

He thought of how ruthless she could be, when required.

He thought of her on the Axis, after they lost Braxiatel, and of how lost and alone she had been, and of how numb the realisation that she was the fated ‘Destroyer of Worlds’ had made her.

He thought of her lying, corpse-like, on a medi-dais, about to be utterly destroyed by the High Council, and as vividly as if it had happened mere seconds ago, he remembered the realisation that had struck him on that day, as he stared into her grey, exhausted face, that she had somehow become as important to him as Gallifrey itself, and he hadn’t even noticed the change.

He remembered his willingness to risk the Web of Time and prevent the Daleks from ever having existed, all in the hope of saving her life. It was one of the worst things he had ever done. He would do it again in a heartsbeat, if it meant that Romana or Leela might live.

A lump rising in his throat, Narvin remembered her terrifying willingness to sacrifice herself for Gallifrey, and for him and Leela. He remembered the warmth he had felt, unexpected, unasked for and surprisingly welcome, the first time he had heard her refer to him as a friend. He remembered the cold hard edge in her voice when she had faced down the final Dalek in the armoury on the alternate Gallifrey that had been their temporary home. He remembered how broken she had seemed, how broken they had both been, when Leela had not returned from her mission with the Master.

His chest ached, as if someone had hollowed it out and left a gaping hole, and the lump in his throat seemed to grow, as he remembered the last time he saw her. The day he had lost her.

Their attackers had moved so fast. He still did not know who they had been, or who they were working for. Feeling faintly sick, he remembered the panic, the confusion, the feeling of Romana’s hand being wrenched from his, the blow to the back of his head.

He remembered waking, alone, his body aching, with Romana nowhere to be seen. He had searched for hours, without success. Their TARDIS was gone, stolen away, and so was she.

Romana was gone, and he had been left alone.

A shrill bleeping jolted him into the present, and he opened his eyes. The text on the screen before him confirmed that the TARDIS had all the information she needed.

He removed his hands and turned to Leela. Her eyes were still closed, and her hands were still on the panel. Her face was calm, but he could see a few stray tear tracks making silvery lines down her cheek.

“We’ve done all we can,” he said softly, placing a hand on her arm, “it’s the TARDIS’ turn now.”

Her eyes jolted open, and she blinked, exhaling slowly, and she nodded, stepping away from the console, clenching and unclenching her fists.

“Are you alright?” he asked quietly.

Leela was silent for a few moments before she answered. “I miss her,” she said simply, “I knew I missed her before, of course I did, but it is only now I have realised quite how much. There is an ache within me, for her, and for everyone else I have lost. But the ache for Romana is the largest of all.”

The lump in Narvin’s throat still hadn’t gone away. It took a few attempts before he managed to persuade himself to speak. “I… I know exactly what you mean.” His voice sounded awfully croaky. “I miss her too. It’s… it’s never been quite the same without her.”

She reached for him, just as he reached for her, and they pulled each other close, holding each other tightly for a few moments. She seemed to gain as much strength from being in his arms as he did from being in hers, because when they let go of one another, her face was once more calmly determined.

“Ready?”

He nodded, and took his place by the console. “Ready.”

Leela stepped forwards and stood beside him. “Then… let’s go.”

He nodded. Together, they pulled the lever, and brought the TARDIS into life. Within moments, they were in flight. Leela had learned a thing or two about piloting TARDISes over the years, and she still remembered most of it, so whenever she turned to Narvin for guidance it was mostly due to her unfamiliarity with the configuration of the console in this particular model.

Despite the circumstances, despite the background fears and desperation, Narvin realised that, in this precise moment, he was actually quite enjoying himself. Piloting a TARDIS with someone he cared for more than he had ever thought was possible, side by side, offering her help when it was asked for and watching on in silent pride when help was not required, in constant awe of her seemingly endless ability to adapt and learn, felt very much like a privilege he had not earned, and so he was going to let himself enjoy this, let himself make the most of this moment so he could look back upon it after the inevitable happened and it all went terribly wrong.

They soared through the Vortex smoothly and without incident, and soon the grating of the engines slowing to a halt announced their materialisation. They had landed.

Narvin methodically ran through the safety checks, carefully reading through all the information supplied by the environmental sensors, whilst Leela tutted impatiently.

“The atmosphere appears to be safe, and breathable, the gravity seems normal, radiation levels are at a barely observable minimum…”

“Then what are we waiting for, Narvin? Let’s go!” She was halfway to the door in a heartsbeat, but then she paused, and looked back at him. “We _have_ definitely landed?”

“Yes, we have. But I still think we should-”

But it was too late. She had already unlocked the doors and gone outside.

Narvin sighed and followed her, huffing and shaking his head in fond despair. He stepped out of the TARDIS and blinked, coming abruptly to a halt with his foot still in mid-air.

He blinked again, certain his eyes had malfunctioned. Everything had turned green.

It took him a few moments to realise that it was a forest, a forest that was carpeted with thick emerald mosses, which grew up the trunks of the trees too, trees that were spindly and crooked, growing twisted around each other until they were knotted into strange patterns, wild and untamed, their leaves an impossibly bright, rich, deep green.

He glanced back at the TARDIS and his heart sank. Unsurprisingly, it looked like a tree, entirely indistinguishable from any of the others. But of course it was. He sighed, feeling completely useless. Leela’s tracking abilities were going to come in handy here, he could tell.

“Narvin! Stop hiding on the doorstep and join me!”

Leela had gone on ahead, and was turning in slow circles as she gazed around, her face stretching into a smile of delight. He closed the TARDIS doors and began to make his way to her side.

“Just look at this place, Narvin! The air is fresh, it smells sweet, it is not smoky like the city could be, and it is not stale like the false air of the TARDIS. It is the perfect temperature too, it is warm, and there is a breeze, and it is a light breeze, not one that chills. The birds, they are unafraid, and there are so many of them! And listen to their song! I have not heard such a sound in such a long time! And the trees! I do not think I have ever seen trees as green as these. It is beautiful, Narvin, is it not?”

“Yes,” he said, watching the way the dappled sunlight illuminated her face, and how the strands of hair that had escaped her bun fanned around her face wispily in a glowing red-brown halo, and the way her face lit up as bright as the sun above as she looked around her, and how she seemed happy, her worries and fears temporarily forgotten. “Yes, Leela. It is. Very beautiful.”

He stepped over a log and his foot landed with a mournful squelching noise. He sighed wearily. “It’s unfortunately muddy, though.”

Leela laughed delightedly; the sound was, to Narvin, more breathtakingly beautiful than any birdsong this planet had to offer.

“You have managed to stand in the only mud in the entire forest, Narvin! This is not muddy! We have both been to places with far more mud than this – like the Vampire Gallifrey.”

Narvin winced, and gingerly extracted his foot from the mud. “I hadn’t forgotten.”

Leela shook her head at him, her eyes sparkling. “How can you look so miserable in a place such as this? Where is your sense of adventure, Narvin?”

He raised an eyebrow. “As you’ll no doubt remember well, I never had one. Besides, we’re not here to have an adventure,” he sniffed, “we’re here to find Romana.”

She sighed, and rolled her eyes in fond despair. “And we shall find her, or a clue that will lead us to her. Come.”

She beckoned imperiously and turned away, and began making her way through the trees, light on her feet and alert to her surroundings.

Narvin hurried to catch up with her (and he _was_ merely hurrying, he certainly wasn’t jogging, thank you very much, he would never be so undignified unless his life – or hers – was under threat), and reflected that a little mud was a small price to pay for seeing her so light-hearted. The shadows that had crept upon her last night had not gone away, for he knew as well as she that nothing so painful went away that easily, but the bright daylight and the surrounding forest so full of _life_ had invigorated her, casting a shield that would keep the shadows at bay, even if it could not expel them completely.

They walked for some time, Narvin following Leela, who was moving as stealthily and carefully as she ever had done. She was a warrior still, in his eyes, and there was nothing that could change that, even if she doubted herself.

They kept walking, until Narvin had completely lost all sense of knowing even approximately where they were in comparison to the TARDIS, and his legs had started to ache. Being stared at by the various strange, fluffy creatures that called this forest their home was also starting to get on his nerves.

He was about to call ahead to Leela and suggest they stop and rest for a while when she stopped dead in her tracks and grabbed his arm when he drew level with her. “Look Narvin! There! In the trunk of that tree!”

He squinted in the direction she was pointing. “What am I supposed to be looking at, exactly?”

“The only unnatural thing on this planet.”

Leela strode forwards, coming to a halt in front of a tree that looked, at first glance, no different from any other in this wild, forgotten place. But as Narvin grew closer, he soon picked out the object that had caught Leela’s attention.

Pressed deeply into the bark, as if it were a part of the tree itself, was a bronze-gold coloured metal cog, about a hand’s span in size.

“I think this is why we are here, Narvin,” Leela said quietly, “We will not see Romana today.”

Narvin studied her carefully. She was staring at the tree, calmly examining the cog, her expression perfectly neutral.

“You seem very certain.”

“Look at this place, Narvin,” she said, turning to him and gesturing to their surroundings, “The creatures that call this planet their home have never known danger or fear, except perhaps when prey are hunted by their predators. This forest has only ever known peace, and the balance of nature. Romana will not be here.”

She returned her gaze to the tree, and pulled out a knife she had had squirreled away somewhere. It appeared to be one of Lily and Neville’s old kitchen knives.

“Are you planning on chopping some onions?”

She glared at him. “You are not funny.”

“Oh? I thought that was actually quite amusing.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and waved the knife in a disapproving, vaguely threatening manner. Despite himself, he stepped backwards a pace, mildly alarmed.

“I am only using this because I have no other suitable knives,” she said, scowling, “We will have to go to a planet where I can find knives that are more suitable for hunting, and fighting.”

Narvin gave a sigh of resignation that was far more melodramatic than it strictly needed to be. “If you insist, I suppose we’ll have to.”

In truth, the prospect of such a shopping trip didn’t bother him as much as he pretended. Yes, he still wasn’t too keen on sharp and alarmingly lethal bladed weapons. However, he was very keen on Leela being happy, and if going to some highly suspect and very illegal alien market and buying enough weaponry to supply a small army would bring her even a small amount of happiness, then who was he to argue?

She waved the blade at him once more, for good measure, and then returned her attention to the tree. She raised the knife and used it to carefully prise the cog from the bark. It came away far more easily than Narvin had expected it to. Once she had it free, she put her knife away and held the metal to the light, turning it around and studying it from every angle.

He was about to ask her to let him have a look when she gasped and lowered the cog, her eyes wide.

“There is writing on it,” she said, her voice hushed.

“Writing? What sort of writing?”

“It… it looks like Gallifreyan.”

“What?”

“I cannot work out what it says, my memory of how to read it has faded, as I have not had to read Gallifreyan for some time.”

“Show me.”

She nodded, and passed him the cog, pointing at what she had found, but he didn’t have a chance to read it, for the moment he touched the metal with his bare hands, his head flared with pain, his sense of Time growing hazy, and a series of images flashed before his eyes.

_A prison of clockwork, changing and shifting… huge cogs turning, hidden from reality…a pale face, imprisoned, exhausted, her expression contorted with pain…_

He dropped the cog and staggered backwards, his head throbbing. The images disappeared as quickly as they had come.

“Narvin?” Leela peered at him in concern.

He cleared his throat, wincing. “I… ah. I think it best that you handle the cog for now, at least until we return to the TARDIS and I can examine it further in the workshop – whilst wearing gloves. It appears to have been exposed to, or to have absorbed, or even to have been made with, some form of temporal energy.”

She picked up the cog and frowned at him, concerned. “What happened, Narvin?”

“I… I’m not sure. But you’re right. This cog is the reason why we landed here, Leela. Wherever Romana is, she certainly isn’t in this forest.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You seem very certain.”

“When I touched it, I… I saw her. I saw Romana. She was imprisoned, and she was… she was in pain.”

Leela grew pale, but her brow furrowed in determination. “Then this is a clue. She _is_ alive, and this will help us find her.”

“It certainly seems that way. We should return to the TARDIS, I need to examine this further.”

He turned and faced the way they had come, his hearts sinking in dismay. It all looked exactly the same, in every direction.

Leela took one look at his stricken face and laughed. “Fear not, brave Time Lord. Unlike _some_ people, _I_ was paying attention to the way we came.”

Narvin rolled his eyes at her, even as a crooked half smile crept onto his face, unbidden. “Well then, fearsome warrior. Do lead the way.”


	4. Clockwork and Stars

Leela sat cross-legged on a boulder, staring down the hill towards the market town below, enjoying the warmth of an unfamiliar, alien sun, which had bathed everything she could see in a strange pinkish yellow light. She rested a hand on the bag beside her and patted it reassuringly. It was comfortably full of knives and other assorted weaponry. It seemed that she could still appreciate a sharpened blade, even if she was no longer sure whether or not she had the right to use one.

If Narvin needed defending, she would defend him. Enough of her remained a warrior enough to be certain of that, at least, even if the rest of her was no longer sure what being a warrior meant. That was still how Narvin saw her, even now, as warrior. She was not quite sure what to make of that.

He had not joined her on her trip to the market town, a tiny, bustling place tucked away on a small planet which thanks to its location, hidden away in the neutral space between several interstellar empires, was used as a home for commerce of dubious legality. Instead, he had stayed behind in the TARDIS, so he could examine the clockwork they had found in the strange green forest. Hopefully when she returned, he might have found some answers, and they would be one step closer to finding Romana.

The market had been fascinating. There had been beings from across half the galaxy there, chattering and bartering and haggling, crowding around market stalls heaving with all sorts of wares, from jewels to knives, from books and papers to technological parts, and so much more besides. Leela had been very tempted to stay for longer and explore, but she had decided against it. They could always come back another day, and besides, if she stayed too long, Narvin would only worry she had got herself into trouble. She did not want him worrying.

She had not only bought knives, but an array of knife belts to put them on, and she had even found a selection of stasers too – a surprising find, as they were clearly Gallifreyan. The market stall holder had been apologetic about their condition, as they had come to him as crumbling relics, old, battered and broken. She had bought them anyway, certain of two things: one, that Narvin would be able to fix them, and two, that he would appreciate them having something besides knives to defend themselves.

She had a second bag at her feet, containing an interesting selection of strange alien foods. They looked delicious, but she was certain that Narvin would refuse to try them. She smiled. No, he would not go anywhere near them. He would, however, quite probably splutter at her about risking her life for some possibly toxic alien desserts.

She shivered. The sun had dropped towards the horizon, and with it the temperature had dropped too. It was time she returned to the TARDIS.

She stood up, stretched, collected her bags of food and weaponry, spared the town at the bottom of the hill one last glance, before making her way to the very top of the hill, where the TARDIS waited, looking like a perfectly innocent pile of rocks. She fished out the key from the chain around her neck and unlocked the door.

The console room was empty. Leela shrugged, guessing that Narvin was probably in the workshop, and she locked the doors securely behind her, before pulling the lever and bringing them into flight. They had nowhere specific to go, not yet, but floating around in the Vortex somehow felt more proactive than remaining stationary.

The console was capable of maintaining itself for the moment, and so she decided to go and find Narvin. Taking the left hand corridor, as it led directly to the workshop, Leela left the console room, but faltered after only a few paces.

The corridor had changed. It was lighter, larger, longer, more airy, more spacious and less oppressively small. There were two doors not that far away from her, one on each side, doors that had not been there before. She walked closer, intrigued, and when she drew level with them, she smiled.

The door to her right led into the kitchen, meaning that it now had two entrances, and that you could cut through it from one corridor to the other. The door on the left hand wall led to a room that had not been there earlier. It appeared to be the living space she had asked for, complete with a sofa and armchairs and even a fireplace, the seating furnished with – and here Leela bit back a laugh – hideously ugly plastic inflatable cushions in a distinctly Gallifreyan style, which clashed terribly with the rather Victorian feel to the place. In fact, it looked like a bizarre cross between Lily and Neville’s living room and Narvin’s old Coordinator’s flat back on Gallifrey, but with a neat pile of carefully folded furs and animal skins sitting politely in one corner for good measure. The whole thing looked ridiculous, and yet somehow, looking at it Leela felt completely at home.

Narvin had been busy, it seemed.

Smiling, she made her way to the workshop, and there he was, hunched over the main workbench, frowning, his hands protected by a pair of gloves. He looked up when she entered and smiled with relief.

“Leela! You’re back! Was it a successful trip?” He eyed her shopping bags dubiously.

“Yed. I have _many_ new knives, and also stasers. They do not work, but I believe you will be able to mend them.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Stasers! Where in the Seven Systems did you find those? Actually, no, don’t tell me, for the sake of my own sanity, I don’t want to know.”

She grinned. “I also found some interesting food.”

He pulled a face. “Please, feel free _not_ to share it.”

She laughed. “Alright. I won’t, if it makes you happy.”

“Hmph.”

“So,” she said, dumping her bags on the floor and wandering over to him, “have you found any answers yet?”

“Possibly.”

“Can you tell me?”

He nodded. “Of course. Take a seat.”

Leela smiled in delight. “I shall.” She sidled forwards and plonked herself casually on his lap, wriggling until she had arranged herself comfortably.

He squeaked feebly in half-hearted protest. “Leela… that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh? You did not say _which_ seat I should take. And this one is by far the most comfortable.” She leant back against his chest and sighed in exaggerated contentment.

“ _Leela!_ ” he protested, even as he put the cog down and wrapped his arms around her to pull her closer to him until she was sitting in a more comfortable position, “You are intolerable sometimes, do you know that?” He leaned down and tenderly kissed her neck.

She grinned. “Only sometimes?”

He snorted softly. “And quite a bit more than that too.”

“Good. My work here is done. Now, about this cogwheel thing. What are these possible answers you speak of? What does the writing say?”

He sighed. “Well, for one thing, you were right about that – it _is_ Gallifreyan. Not words though – numbers. More precisely, a date – most likely the date on which it was made.”

Leela peered at it, and then blinked in surprise, and put it down again. “The writing, it changed!”

He sighed heavily, and she felt herself rise and fall with the movement of his chest.

“Yes,” he said, “That date has shifted several times already.”

Leela shifted position so she could meet his eyes. “How can the date something was made on change? That is not possible!”

Narvin looked sour. “The Time War. The dates it has displayed so far are all from within the very heights of the War, and so the day it was made on doesn’t always exist. It was created on a day that hasn’t always happened, but might have done sometimes. Time was unstable, the datelines always in flux, and so, the date changes.”

Leela shivered. “I do not like the sound of that.”

He gave her a reassuring squeeze. “It shouldn’t be anything we need to worry about, at least not for a while.”

Still wearing his gloves, he rotated the cog to point out something else, something she had not seen earlier.

“More writing!”

“Yes. It looks to be a serial number, of sorts.”

“What does it say?”

He sighed. “Five out of forty.”

Leela frowned. “I do not… Oh!” She turned and stared at him in dawning realisation. “You mean…”

“Yes. It seems that there are other pieces of the clockwork, or the mechanism, or whatever it’s supposed to be, out there. Thirty-nine other pieces, to be precise.”

“So… if we find them all, will they lead us to Romana?”

He nodded uncertainly. “I believe so.”

“It will not be easy to put them all together. It is lucky you have had to spend so long fixing…” she trailed off, and shifted position so she could better meet his gaze. “ _Oh_.”

“Oh?”

“I think… What if this is why Braxiatel made Neville a watchmaker? To make sure you are well-practiced with making things that are made of clockwork, ready for this?”

Narvin stiffened, and he stared at her, his brow furrowed. “Do you know, Leela,” he murmured, “I think you might be right. That still does not explain why he removed our memories, of course, but that does seem to fit rather neatly. Even though, of course, he would have been perfectly well aware that I was perfectly capable of fixing many technologies – including clockwork – in the first place, and the idea that I needed the practise is rather insulting, yes, it fits.”

“Hm.” Leela nodded. “Then this is our task. We must find the other pieces, and then you will put them together, and then they will take us to Romana’s prison, and we will rescue her. And then we will find Braxiatel and tell him exactly what we think of his plans. Violently.”

He raised his eyebrows and smiled wryly. “You make it all sound so easy.”

She grinned at him. “It could be a lot worse.”

He pulled an agonised face at her, and Leela instinctively knew that he was about to give her a very long and detailed list of all the reasons why they were facing certain disaster.

“Hush,” she said, placing a finger on his lips before he had a chance to speak. He stared at her like a startled rabbit.

“You may tell me all the ways everything will go wrong, Narvin, and I will listen, but do it tomorrow, please. It is late, and you have been working for some hours. You must be tired. I am.”

She slid her finger away from his lips and slipped it under his jaw, and pulled him towards her so she could kiss him. To her disappointment, he pulled away after only a few seconds.

“I’m not quite finished yet,” he told her.

“Narvin-”

“You’ll like this, I promise you. I’ve been working on programming extra rooms, as you requested.”

“Yes, I saw the living room. It looks very… comfortable.”

“Hmm. That’s not all I’ve done, though.”

“The corridors are lighter and wider. I know. Thank you.”

“A minor inefficiency seems a small price to pay for your happiness.”

Leela swallowed back the un-warrior-like urge to cry, and kissed him. He smiled as she did so, pulling back a few slow seconds later to rest his forehead against hers.

“I’ve… also created a space for you to use for exercise, if that’s still something you would like.”

She sat back and grinned at him. “Thank you, Narvin!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t get too enthusiastic, I didn’t just do it for your benefit. Have you any idea how much of a racket you make, running up and down the corridors? It’s very distracting.”

She pulled a face and poked him in the arm. “You are annoying.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Would you like to see it now?”

She grinned at him again. “Yes, Narvin. I would. Thank you.”

He made a small ‘hm’ in satisfaction. There was a pause, before: “Leela, you know that if we’re going to go and look at this room, you do actually have to get off of my lap first.”

Leela huffed at him, but hopped off anyway. Taking off his gloves and slipping his fingers through hers, he led her out of the workshop and down the back corridor to another doorway that had not been there earlier.

“After you.”

She opened the door and took a step backwards in surprise. The room beyond was ordinarily sized, at first glance, but she soon realised that was typical TARDIS trickery. Leela got the sense that the room’s dimensions would be as large or small as she needed them to be. If she ever wanted to run forever, she would probably be able to.

She stepped inside, gazing around in increasing bewilderment. It was less sterile looking than the rest of the TARDIS, though it still smelled the same, nothing like the organised wilderness/ secret spy hideout it was pretending to be.

Leela took a few more steps forward. It could only be described as a cross between the high-tech and mysterious CIA weapons range and the bottom of a rocky, tree-lined valley. There were circular targets scattered haphazardly about the place, jumbled in with the sophisticated devices that created the holographic targets she had become familiar with on Gallifrey, as well as a locker near the door to store any weapons she might happen to acquire on their travels. Clearly Narvin had been thinking ahead.

The trees were tidily wild and had many branches, and the walls were stone-like cliffs, with plenty of seams and cracks that would do very well as handholds for climbing. There were rocks strewn about the place, but there was flat ground too, as smooth as the corridors outside, mixed up amongst the rockier, rougher terrain. In short, there was plenty of varied space where she could run without resorting to running round and round in the same boring circles. Somewhere, hidden beyond the trees, she was sure she could hear running water.

“Well?” Narvin asked quietly.

“This is not quite what I expected,” she turned to him and grinned, “It is much better. I will be able to run, and because of the trees and the rocks I can climb, too. I have not had to climb in such a long time. And I can practise throwing knives, and I can remind myself how to shoot. Thank you, Narvin, you have done a wonderful job – even if the trees are not real. This is _good_!”

He raised his eyebrows at her comment about the false vegetation. “How did you know about the trees?”

“They have no smell.”

“Ah. Of course. I should have known you’d notice. I know you’re not fond of artificial things but, well, you seemed so delighted by that forest I thought you might like having something similar to hide away in when I get on your nerves.”

She laughed. “Thank you. That was very thoughtful. But why can I hear water?”

“Ah. Well. If you were to venture a little further in, you would find a small river – as artificial as the trees, I’m afraid, but the water in it is real enough. That’s the closest I’m ever going to get to creating a swimming pool aboard the TARDIS – which is still one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard of, by the way.”

She smiled. “So… no inflatable frogs?”

He wrinkled his nose, aghast. “Frogs? Absolutely not.”

“A shame.” She gazed around again. Once, she would have gone bounding off, endlessly energetic and eager to explore. But now she was simply content to look, for the time being. Whilst it was true that she was intrigued by the place, eager to see more of it, to catch a glimpse of the river, to see just how far the room stretched out beyond the nearest trees, to see how far she could climb the walls before she lost sight of the floor, she was also increasingly tired. Exploring could wait, for now.

Part of her wondered whether this was another indication that she had become more Gallifreyan in the absence of her warrior’s heart, content to stand and watch, unmoving, uninterested in seeing anything that could not be seen at a distance. Another part of her wearily reminded her that she had had not-that-many hours of sleep, and they had walked quite far in the forest, and then she had been to the market after that, so her lack of interest in exploring immediately was most likely exhaustion setting in.

She turned her back on the strange environment and returned to Narvin. Standing close, she rose onto tiptoe to kiss him, first on his lips, then on the end of his nose.

“Thank you, Narvin. This is far more than I hoped for.”

“It was no problem,” he said, with a bashful half-smile, “I’m glad you like it. There’s something else I’d like to show you, if you’re interested?”

Leela narrowed her eyes at him, intrigued. “Yes. I am interested. Go on, then. Show me”

He smiled at her in that crooked, embarrassed way he had. “As you wish.”

He took her hand and led her from the room, and they walked down the corridor in comfortable silence. When they came to the corner between the corridor that led to the console room and the one that led to their bedroom, Leela faltered. Opposite the corridor to the console room, a new corridor had appeared. It was dimly lit, and sloped gently upwards.

Leela looked at Narvin curiously. He smiled at her, half way between mysterious and infuriating, before squeezing her hand reassuringly and leading her along the new corridor.

It had only one door, right at the end; a wooden one, painted bronze with golden Gallifreyan script flowing across it. When they reached it, Narvin stopped. She recognised his expression well. It was the hesitant, determined frown, the one he wore when he was trying to gather courage for something. Curiosity gnawed at Leela’s gut, and she tugged at his hand impatiently. What _was_ he up to?

“Narvin?”

He gave her an uncertain half-smile and took her free hand in his, before raising both her hands to chest height, and pressing a kiss to both knuckles.

“Since my last attempt at a… ahem… a romantic overture didn’t work, due to my spectacular oversight -”

“–it was not your fault!” Leela protested automatically.

“That’s not the point,” he said. “Since that didn’t work, I thought I’d alter my approach. The room beyond this door is entirely contained within the TARDIS. It’s completely indoors, and is nowhere near the console room for good measure. Though it’s not visible when the room is being used as intended, there is a floor. There is also the option of switching the local gravity off too – I’ll show you how to work the controls, if you like. But the point of this room is that it’s completely safe. There is no chance of falling – because there’s nowhere to fall to.”

He opened the door, and Leela gasped. The room beyond was filled with stars.

Still holding his hand, she tentatively stepped over the threshold, her heart racing as she carefully placed her foot onto what looked like the empty void of space, but seemed to be, as promised, a reassuringly solid floor.

She let go of his hand, dropped to one knee, and felt the floor carefully. It was cold and smooth – glass, perhaps. She raised her head and slowly surveyed the room before her. Everywhere was darkness, the sort of darkness where the deep blues and velvety purples were so impossibly dark they seemed black, and the darkness was punctured by flickering pinpricks of light, some so tiny they were barely noticeable, some far larger, as if they were closer, and plenty more in between, and here and there Leela could see colourful wisps scattered like clouds.

It was Space, and it had a floor, and walls, and a door. It was Space, indoors.

She turned to look behind her, and gazed up at Narvin in wonder. He still stood in the doorway, regarding her closely, his brow furrowed in worry and affection alike. She stared at him, her lips parted, burning with the many questions she couldn’t quite put to words.

He stepped towards her, and held out his hand. The doors closed behind him, and with the light from the corridor obscured, the stars seemed to shine all the brighter. Leela took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.

“You have made a room filled with stars,” she said softly, “you have made a Star Room, for me.”

He nodded, and his face crinkled into a bashful smile. “Do… do you like it?”

She beamed at him, and ran her free hand over the contours of his face. “ _Yes_ ,” she said, stroking his cheekbone with her thumb, “yes, I do. _Thank you_.”

He dropped his gaze away from hers, and swallowed, shuffling his feet. “I- you’re welcome.”

She removed her hand from his face and turned so she could view the whole of the room again. “How does it work?”

“Ah, well, it’s quite simple really, what you’re seeing is a holographic projection. The room itself is spherical, with a transparent floor across the centre of the sphere, to allow you to see the projection below you as well as above. There’s a control panel hidden by the door; it controls the image being projected, and the gravity.”

“I see,” she said, smiling. The bashfulness had vanished the moment she had asked her question; he was using his technician voice now, the voice he seemed to reserve for explaining any of his technological prowess, but more specifically, the voice he used when explaining something technical after he had not been able to discuss anything remotely technological for quite some time, and so ended up providing an extremely enthusiastic explanation. He had done much the same when he had been Neville, and had been given a chance to talk about clockwork.

“Where do these images come from?” she asked. “Is it made up, or are they real stars?”

“They’re based on real stars, yes. The images are from the TARDIS databases. You can choose to project any particular phenomenon, constellation, or sector of space, as long as it’s recorded in the database. Alternatively, you can choose to project whatever happens to be outside the TARDIS, be it the vortex or an area of space. And if you don’t know what to choose, it’s possible to let the computer pick something at random.”

She nodded slowly, and let go of his hand, drifting slowly to the centre of the great starry sphere, turning around slowly on the spot, craning her head to look at the stars above her and peering through the glass floor to study the stars beneath her feet. She couldn’t see any sign of the walls, and she only knew the floor was there because she could feel it. It was strange, and it was beautiful, and it had been created in the hope of pleasing _her_.

A lump was forming in her throat. Narvin had made this room for her, had programmed it purely in the hope it might please her. Oh, he had done that with the rocky forest room too, but that served a purpose: it was a place for her to exercise, a place where she could have time to herself, if she needed it, and a place where she could run freely without driving him to distraction; it was her equivalent of his workshop. But this? It was probably extremely inefficient, and it served no function other than to make her happy.

Though he had been trying hard to be more open with her, ever since they had got their memories back, he was still not always the best at sharing how he felt. He was gradually getting better at it, but his words were still frequently clumsy and awkward. They were well meant and heartfelt, and gratefully received, but still sometimes they left him tangled and unsure. And as it had always been, where his words failed him, his actions took over. She would feel the depth and warmth of his feelings for her in the simplest of gestures, in the simple acts of showing how much he cared.

This was the grandest gesture of them all. He had given her the stars. Of course, being Narvin, they were stars that had been neatly packaged and made orderly, stars that were carefully controlled and made safe, all risks removed from the equation. But even so, they were still stars.

She turned to him. He had not moved. He still stood by the door, watching her closely.

“You said you could turn off the gravity?”

“Yes. Would you like me to?”

“Yes.”

He fiddled with the control panel, and the weightlessness took hold. Cautiously, Leela pushed upwards, and her feet left the floor. She spread her arms wide and let herself adjust to the strange, floating feeling. Drifting as she was amongst the holographic stars, she reached down to him.

“Join me, Narvin.”

He nodded, and with surprising grace, he left the ground and floated towards her, until he was close enough to grasp her outstretched hand and pull her close.

She held him tightly, and leaned her cheek against his. “Thank you for this, Narvin. It is beautiful.”

He said nothing, only bent his head and pressed a kiss to her neck.

“Which stars are these?” she asked softly.

He sighed before replying. “These larger ones, the ones closest to us, they make up the constellation of Kasterborous.”

“The constellation of– oh!” She pulled her head back sharply and looked him in the eye. “That is-”

“Yes.”

“Then… which stars are where Gallifrey was?”

He hesitated, his brow creasing, and she instantly knew why. She had used the past tense unthinkingly, unfalteringly. ‘Was’, instead of ‘is’. It came naturally to her now. It felt wrong, somehow, as though they were finally coming to accept the loss of Gallifrey.

He swallowed, collected himself and turned his gaze to the stars, searching them with a frown. He paused, his eyes brightening, and he placed his hands on her waist, turning her around to orient her in the right direction, not letting go in case she drifted away.

“There.” He pointed towards a bright smudge of light which shone more strongly than the other stars around it, his other hand still resting on her hip, “It’s actually two stars, of course, but you can’t really tell that from here, it’s too bright”.

She leaned back against him, and sighed. “Home,” she said softly.

“Once. Long ago.”

“This is our home now.”

He lowered his arm and wrapped it firmly around her, anchoring her safely against him. “Yes. Yes it is.” He bent his head and pressed his lips to her neck once more.

They floated for a while in silence, staring at the stars Gallifrey had once orbited, and drifting directionless between the myriad others, held together by his arms around her waist, each lost to their own thoughts.

Leela gazed across the pretend stars. Somewhere in the wide Universe outside the TARDIS, these stars existed, bright burning lights amongst the void, each with their own planets, planets that had trees and moons and rocks and perhaps even people. Scattered across these stars were the lumps of shaped and moulded metal that, when fitted together, would lead them to Romana.

She was out there, somewhere. Romana was out there, hidden from view, alone, quite probably afraid and in pain. But if Leela knew her friend, and she did know her, as well as she knew herself, then Romana would be facing whatever ordeal she was being put through with her own particular brand of fierce dignity and defiance that Leela had never really seen in anyone else. They would find her, however long the search might take. Leela was certain of it.

She twisted in Narvin’s arms so she could face him again, and he loosened his grip on her waist to give her more room to move, but untethered, she began to float away. His eyes widened, as if missing her before she had gone, and he reached for her, fumbling to grasp her hand before they were completely separated, even as he began to drift in the opposite direction. She caught his flailing hand, and pulled him towards her, each other’s safe anchor once more. She wound her arms around the back of his neck, and wrapped her legs tight around his waist – for purely practical reasons, of course. They could not drift apart if she had planted herself securely around him.

He raised an eyebrow and smiled crookedly, his arms winding as tightly around her as hers were around him. As they sank into a deep kiss, a kiss which held unspoken yet mutually agreed promises of more, Leela’s last thought was that, for the moment at least, all the dark shadows that haunted them seemed a Universe away, as if chased away by the light of the stars.


	5. Back to School

Leela watched the central column begin its slow movement through the centuries, her heart racing, as if the grinding roar of the engines had made its way into her bloodstream, breathing life into her tired old bones. She had almost forgotten how it felt, to be venturing through the Vortex, hurtling through Time itself to an unknown destination, not knowing what was waiting there.

Across the console, Narvin caught her eye, and she grinned at him. His eyes were alight with steely determination, fuelled by a faint but brightly burning spark of hope. Lit up by the warm white-yellow glow of the TARDIS lights, Narvin seemed almost ablaze, as if he had been possessed by Romana herself at the very height of her powers. Or perhaps that was simply the ache and the longing to see Romana again pushing all sense aside, seeking in desperation for some sign of their absent friend.

She knew how Narvin was feeling. She knew the determination and hope he held in his eyes well, for she felt them too, burning through her like fire. It was good to be _doing something_ , to have a mission, a purpose, a clear set of steps follow in order to reach their goal, instead of drifting around, fumbling in the dark, steeped in uncertainty.

The roar of the engines wheezed to a grumbling halt. They had landed. Narvin immediately assessed the outside conditions, before reading through their current coordinates. As he did so, his face fell.

“What is the matter? Have we landed somewhere dangerous?”

“No,” he sighed, “Not dangerous. Just… disappointing.”

“Where are we?”

Narvin sighed. “London, England, Earth.”

She stared at him, and groaned. “We have travelled so far.”

“Sixty-two years, to be precise. It’s now the year 1963.”

A high-pitched bleeping noise accompanied by a frantic red flashing light caught his attention. He glanced at the screen, and his face plummeted in horror. He staggered backwards, stuttering.

“No… _no_ , that’s impossible. A… a stellar manipulator?”

“Narvin?”

“A stellar… stellar….” He blinked and re-read the screen. “The _Hand_ of… the HAND of _OMEGA?_ What in the name of the Twelve Galaxies is _that_ doing _here_?”

“Perhaps it wanted a holiday.”

Narvin glared at her. “There is no way that could possibly be here. It’s impossible. Impossible!” He frowned at the screen again. “We’ll have to investigate it, this complicates things considerably…”

“No, Narvin, we are here for one reason only, and that is to find the clockwork that will help us find Romana.”

A vague memory dawned, one in which she shared memories of her travels with the only other human on Gallifrey, who had plenty of her own stories to tell.

“Narvin…” she said slowly, as the memory grew less hazy and the old, half-forgotten words came crawling back to her, “I do not think this is for us to worry about.”

“What make you so sure of that? This is the _Hand of_ -”

“-Of Omega, yes, I know. And I remember Ace once telling me a story about the Doctor, some daleks and the Hand–”

“And the Hand of Omega, of course!” Narvin slumped back against the console in relief. “I remember now. Those events did occur on Earth, in this time period, yes. We needn’t investigate, then. We can’t interfere – all of that, it’s history for us.”

“We cannot forget about it entirely. There may be daleks.”

He ran a hand across his beard wearily. “If that’s the case, we’ll have to avoid them. We can’t interfere, not even to fight them. But if we’re very, _very_ fortunate, we might have arrived before they have.”

“Then let us hope so. Daleks are not easily avoided… Oh! We might see the Doctor and Ace!”

Narvin sighed, and moved around the console so he could place his hands on her shoulders. “It’s possible. And if we do come across them, we’ll have to avoid them too. We can’t allow them to discover our presence here, it’ll ruin the timelines. I’m sorry.”

Leela deflated. “I know. It is just that…” she faltered, and wrapped her arms around him, resting her head on his chest, letting the beat of his hearts soothe her.

He pulled her closer and held her tightly. “I know. If it helps, if we do happen across her, it won’t be the Ace we knew. She’ll be a lot younger – and I mean a lot. At this point in her timeline, she’s only just started travelling with the Doctor. She still has so much to learn, to experience. This will be the first time she ever meets a dalek.”

“I know that too. It’s just that… she was my friend. I miss her.”

Narvin sighed heavily. “So do I.”

Leela squeezed him harder, and then let go. His arms fell away from her reluctantly, and she gave him an apologetic smile. “We cannot find Romana if we stand here all day.”

He nodded ruefully. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

She grinned, and checked her weapons. Two knives, and a staser, all strapped to one of her new knife belts. They were probably unnecessary, but it would have felt wrong to go without them. Besides, if there _were_ daleks out there, and she sincerely hoped there were not, she did not want to be caught unarmed. She glanced at Narvin, who was discretely hiding a staser in his coat pocket.

“You might want to put a coat on yourself,” he said, eyeing her knife belt, “We don’t want to cause mass panic now, do we?”

She pulled a face, but pulled on the coat he had ready and waiting for her all the same.

She crossed the console room, pausing by the door controls, and raised a questioning eyebrow at him. He nodded, reassuringly, and she heard his unspoken words as clearly as he had heard her unasked question. _Yes_ , his eyes seemed to say, _yes, we have landed, it’s ok. Yes, it is safe to open the doors. Yes, we have definitely landed, it’s ok. You’re safe. We’re safe. It’s ok._

She unlocked the doors. They opened with a hum, and she strode towards them, not wanting him to see her face until she had managed to rearrange it into something resembling confidence again. It was ridiculous. She knew they had landed. And yet, there was still a voice in the back of her head that seemed to be doing its utmost to persuade her otherwise. She would defeat it. She was sure she would. It just might be a battle far longer than the ones she was used to.

She stopped two paces from the threshold, and looked around. They had landed on a corner between three unremarkable streets. There was no-one around, and it was cold and gloomy, the sky an unbroken iron grey, already starting to darken. It felt like late afternoon in early winter, Leela decided. Not exactly her favourite time of the year, but that did not matter. It was not as if they were here for a holiday.

Narvin joined her in peering down the deserted street, and behind him, the TARDIS door shut with a creak and a click, two entirely normal noises that nonetheless sent tingles running down her spine. She _knew_ those sounds.

Leela whirled around, and was greeted by a wonderfully familiar sight. She burst into delighted giggles, but beside her, Narvin groaned.

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” he said, his nose wrinkling in disgust. “It could have been anything. Anything! A car! A lamppost! A post-box! _Anything!_ But no, you really had to pick _that_.”

“ _I_ like it.” Leela said, grinning at him.

Narvin scowled. “Well of course you do. It looks like…” He sniffed. “No, I can’t even bring myself to say it.”

Their TARDIS had turned tall, blue, wooden, and box shaped. It had a light on the top, and rectangular windows above the wood panels on each of its four sides, and a sign on the front with instructions for use. In short, it now looked almost identical to the Doctor’s TARDIS. Leela was not sure when she had last seen Narvin look quite so revolted.

He sighed. “Well, it will serve, for this era, I suppose. Just as long as it doesn’t get stuck like that. I don’t think I could bear the shame.”

Leela snorted. “Hmm. Have you got the scanner?”

He produced a device from his pocket. It was elegant yet lopsidedly rustic, cobbled together from the odds and ends lying about in the workshop. He had shown it to her earlier, and explained how he had set it using the strange energies the cogwheel had been seeped in. He pulled out an antenna, switched the scanner on and moved it around in a slow circle.

Nothing happened at first, and then, a quiet _blip_ , accompanied by a weak red flashing light. Narvin circled the scanner around once more, just to be sure, and the same happened again.

“It looks like it’s that way, then,” he said, nodding down the street.

Leela nodded, and they set off, Narvin surreptitiously holding the scanner out in front of them, swinging it around every time they got to a crossroads to double-check the direction. They were in quiet backstreets, but by the sounds of it, they weren’t far off from a busier area. Somewhere beyond the plain brick buildings surrounding them, Leela could hear the rumble of traffic, and the shouts of children. But here, it was quiet. The only other people they passed were a nervous-looking couple sitting in a parked car near a set of painted wooden gates. Leela thought they looked as though they were waiting for something.

They walked further, until the pavements grew slightly busier, and they had to weave their way through gaggles of slow-moving children, some chattering amongst themselves, others yelling at each other and giving one another playful shoves.

Narvin drew them to a halt at a corner. “That building there,” he muttered, nodding towards a large red-brick building surrounded by a high wall, “It’s a school of some sort, I think.”

Leela nodded, and cast a critical eye over the school buildings. The wall was climbable, and the gate was still open; a few children were still drifting slowly through it, their backs firmly turned away from it, the final stragglers at the end of the school day. A few adults were amongst them, tired and harassed-looking – probably the teachers, Leela thought. She recognised that look from her short time teaching in the Academy.

The dregs of the school crowds slowly began to disappear, until finally, the street had quietened. Once more, they were the only ones around.

“The gate is still open,” Leela muttered, “We should sneak in, before they close it. If you are sure that is where we need to be, that is.”

Narvin fiddled with the scanner, and pointed it towards the school. The bleeping and the flashing light did seem more urgent now, and the urgency increased every time the antenna was pointed towards the school. He nodded. “Yes, it’s definitely there. Well then. Lead the way.”

She gave a slight nod, glanced around, and beckoned for him to follow her. They slipped through the gate and into the playground, skirting around the edges, until Leela saw movement in the corner of her eye.

She grabbed Narvin by the arm and pulled him unceremoniously behind several nearby metal bins. Narvin sniffed, grimacing. “That smells vile.”

Leela nodded. The bins reeked of rotting food and sour milk, especially when they were crouched down this close to them. “I know. But never mind that. Look, over there.”

She pointed towards the gate. A man was whistling, rattling a set of keys cheerfully as he went through the gate, pulled it closed and locked it behind him.

“Clearly a caretaker of some sort,” Narvin muttered, “Presumably he’s locked all the buildings, too. Any suggestions as to how we break in? Not to mention how we get out again?”

Leela shrugged, and stood up cautiously. “Getting out will be easy, we can just climb over the wall. Let’s go and have a closer look at the buildings. And stop looking so worried, Narvin. There is no-one around.”

She began to creep towards the school buildings, Narvin close behind her. The main doors were locked, so she skirted around the walls and tried a few of the windows. She didn’t have to try many before she let out a cry of satisfaction.

“This window, it is not locked. We can get in!” She opened it wider, hoisted herself up to the ledge and pulled herself through, landing easily on the other side.

Narvin sighed, and awkwardly clambered through behind her, landing with a thud. Leela shook her head in despair. _Time Lords._ She held out her hand.

“Would you like help getting up?”

He took her hand, grumbling indistinctly, and she pulled him to his feet. He dusted himself off and glanced around. They were in a classroom, perhaps a science lab of sorts, with the day’s final lesson still scrawled on the blackboard, and with equipment still set up on the front desk.

They skirted the graffiti covered wooden desks and the uncomfortable looking high stools and paused in the doorway, Leela listening intently for any signs of life, peering at the short corridor outside, past the sports noticeboard next to them, towards the empty stairwell.

“I can’t hear anything,” Narvin muttered in her ear, “I think we can – “

“Hush, Narvin!” she said, and he fell silent. “We are not alone.”

All was quiet, save for the sound of footsteps, echoing in an empty corridor. They were growing louder, as whoever it was came closer.

“I hear it too,” Narvin said, “get back in the classroom.”

Leela ducked back inside. The footsteps grew louder, and then stopped. She risked another look down the corridor, and peeked out the doorway. A man was standing there, blank-faced, owlish and balding, his eyes glazed in a way that sent prickles of alarm racing across the back of Leela’s neck. He glanced around, as if checking he was alone, and then strode forwards, towards a space next to the stairwell, out of sight. There was the sound of a door being unlocked, opening and closing again, and then silence.

Leela stepped into the corridor, and moved lightly down it until she was facing the plain green door under the stairwell the man had disappeared through. She narrowed her eyes at it suspiciously. “That man was up to something.”

“Not our problem.” Narvin had joined her, and was checking the scanner. The shrill beeping became loudest and most urgent when he pointed it towards the staircase.

“It is upstairs, somewhere?” Leela asked.

“It certainly looks that way. After you.”

They crept up the stairs, Leela letting her hand rest upon the hilt of her knife for reassurance. The school smelled odd, like years of adolescent sweat and tears badly disguised by strong disinfectant – much like the Academy had smelled, she thought uncomfortably, although without the addition of wood varnish, ancient buildings, and pomposity. Apparently that distinct smell of youthful despair, confusion and bravado was exactly the same, right across the universe. The thought was an oddly depressing one.

They paused when they reached the next floor, but the scanner still indicated the needed to go further up, so they continued up the stairs until they were on the top floor. There was no-one else around, thankfully, and the school was eerily silent. The only sounds were the echoes of their footsteps around the stairwell, intermingled with the squeaks of their shoes against the over-polished floor.

Once upstairs, they continued down the empty corridor, checking each classroom as they passed. The scanner was dismissive of each one. They were definitely closer to the clockwork here, it seemed to be saying, but no matter which way they turned, they did not seem to be getting any closer.

Narvin stopped, sighing heavily.

Leela frowned at him. “Narvin?”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” he muttered, and pointed the scanner at the ceiling. The urgency of the beeping immediately increased.

Leela blinked at it, and then slowly looked up. “It is on the roof?”

Narvin sighed again. “It would seem so.”

“Oh dear.”

“Quite. Any ideas?”

“We could… find a window and climb out?”

His shoulders slumped dejectedly. “You know, I _knew_ you were going to say that, but I was really hoping you wouldn’t.”

She shrugged. “Have you got a better idea?”

He sighed. “No. No, I haven’t.”

“Well then.” She pushed open the door of the nearest classroom ad crossed to the window. She opened it and poked her head outside, and peered intently at the layout of the buildings. There was a part of the building with a lower roof nearby, and there were windows above it. They would be able to climb out of those windows, onto the lower roof, and climb from there onto the higher roof.

She reported her findings to Narvin, who looked thoroughly unimpressed with the situation, but followed her lead willingly enough, and so together they hurried along the corridor until they had found the right classroom.

Leela opened the window. It was directly over the pinnacle of the lower roof, where the two sloping sides met. Perfect. She started to climb out, but paused as she glanced back and saw the deeply dubious expression on Narvin’s face.

She reached out to him and rested it against his shoulder. “It is not ideal,” she said softly, “but there is no other way. We must do this, for Romana.”

He nodded. “I know,” he said, “but if I’d have known we were going to be climbing through windows and scrambling around on rooftops, I’d have worn a more comfortable pair of trousers.”

Leela rolled her eyes, and pulled herself through the window. From there, it was not too much trouble for her to reach the higher roof, and she perched there, leaning back against the tiles, her feet carefully balanced on the ledge that ran around the very edge of the sloping roof. It had an iron gutter attached to it, but she did not want to risk putting her weight on that, if at all possible.

She shuffled along to give Narvin space to manoeuvre, and called out to him. “Come, Narvin, it is your turn, now!”

The grumbling from below confirmed that he had heard her, and soon he was perched awkwardly beside her, fishing the scanner back out of his coat pocket.

She nodded at it. “Which way now?”

He swung it around until the beeping increased again. “That way, he said, pointing, “away from this section and the comfort of having a lower roof beneath us, unfortunately.”

“We will be fine, Narvin.”

“Hmm,” he said, sounding thoroughly unconvinced. He pocketed the scanner again so he had both hands free.

They made their way precariously around the roof’s ledge, leaning into the slope, resting a hand on the tiles, until the low-roofed part of the building was no longer beneath them, replaced by the hard grey playground below. It was nearly dark now, and the temperature had dropped noticeably.

“Pass me the scanner, Narvin?”

He did so, looking distinctly queasy. She pointed in front of her, and then up to the very top of the roof; the signal grew noticeably stronger.

“I think we should get up to the point of the roof,” she said, tucking the scanner in her knife belt, “the signal says we should, and anyway, I think we will be more balanced up there.”

He nodded, and she scrambled up to the very top of the roof, slipping on the tiles a little as she went; some of them seemed worryingly loose. Once at the top, she sat down on the rounded tiles at the roof’s point, one leg on either side, and pulled the scanner out again. The signal seemed the strongest whenever she pointed it at the dark mass on top of the far side of the roof – it was a chimney stack, she realised, and squinted at it carefully.

There was a scrambling and muffled yelp below, but she did not turn round, knowing that Narvin would not want her witnessing whatever undignified climbing technique he had resorted to. She continued to squint at the chimney stack, searching for anything unusual and – _there_. An unnatural bronze glint, shining despite the darkness, hidden amongst the chimney pots.

“I see it, Narvin!” she called, and turned around. But Narvin was not there. She was alone on the rooftop, accompanied only by the empty space where he had been.

* * *

It had to be said, thought the one remaining rational voice Narvin had left to him, that dangling from the guttering around the edge of rooftop, holding on by one’s fingertips, feet swaying alarmingly above the hard asphalt playground oh-so-far below, was really not a fun way of passing the time. And yet here he was, doing exactly that.

Above him, Leela scrambled down from the top of the roof and leaned forwards precariously. She reached out to him, her eyes wide with fear.

“Narvin! Take my hand!” When he didn’t immediately respond, she repeated herself in increasing desperation (but with more than a hint of frustration too, which he thought was really very rude of her). “My _hand_ , Narvin! Come on! Or you will fall!”

“The thought _had_ occurred to me, funnily enough!” he snapped.

His fingers were really starting to ache now, and they were going numb with cold, thanks to the increasing chill carried in the night’s air. He gritted his teeth and held on tighter. Her hand looked very far away.

“Don’t look down,” he muttered to himself, “don’t look down. We’ve been through this before. Just don’t look down.” He glanced down, and whimpered, embarrassingly loudly.

He gritted his teeth again. “What did I tell you, Narvin? _Don’t look down_.”

The guttering seemed to be groaning with the strain, which seemed more than a little concerning, given that it was made of cast iron. It was supposed to be built to last. It was also ornately decorated around the edges, presumably in case anyone who happened to be dangling from it got bored by the view, and needed something else to look at besides the ground looming menacingly beneath them. He supposed it could have been marginally worse. If they had arrived in a later era, no doubt the gutters would have been replaced by plastic ones instead, considerably less sturdy than the supposedly solid Victorian ironwork he was now pinning his life on, not to mention being far more liable to being absorbed into the Nestene Consciousness.

He glanced downwards, and yet again regretted it. His knees felt very wobbly, and his fingers were trembling, and his arms ached, and for a split second he was back on Gallifrey, hanging from the top of the old Matrix Building, with Agent Eris’ worried (and annoyingly young) face peering down at him from above.

Narvin took a deep breath, and forced himself to look upwards, away from the impending asphalt-based doom, to the worried (and older than it seemed) face of Leela above, an infinitely more preferable sight than the death-by-playground waiting patiently below.

A gust of wind harried at him, and his coat flapped in the breeze. He closed his eyes, wincing, and wondering vaguely whether he was going to be blown away before he had a chance to fall. He opened his eyes and looked back at Leela, who for some reason, seemed to be taking her clothes off.

“This really isn’t the time-” he began, his voice wavering, but shut up quickly when she shot him a poisonous glare.

“Hush, idiot, and let me save your life.”

Narvin did as he was told.

Leela pulled off her knife belt, removed the blades and the staser, and stuck a knife in each boot and the staser in her pocket, before dangling the belt in front of him. Focusing on it made him go slightly cross-eyed. It was made with tough and unidentifiable animal hide, and it was too long for her, evidently made for a being of considerably more girth than Leela’s slender (and humanoid) figure, and so to wear it she had to wrap it around her a few times so it would fit.

“If you will not reach for my hand, take hold of this, instead, and I will pull you up.”

Narvin swallowed. The trembling in his hands seemed to have increased, and his arms were stiff, locked into place. He wasn’t sure he could move. He glanced downwards, and swallowed again. The ground did seem _very_ far away.

“Narvin!”

He met her gaze.

“You can do this, Narvin, you _can_. One hand at a time. Move your right hand first.”

He nodded, took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and forced his fingers to relinquish their grip on the guttering. He swung alarmingly, attached to the gutter by only one hand, and flapped wildly at the belt, missed, despite the fact it was right in front of him, and grabbed at it again, this time more successfully, his fist clenching around it, trembling, his hearts hammering far faster than seemed possible.

He wound his arm around the belt and hung lopsidedly, forcing himself to take several deep breaths, and to trust that Leela would be able to hold his weight. He looked up again; she was staring down at him, her brow furrowed with concentration. Well, he hoped it was concentration, and not the strain of holding his life in her hands.

“Well done, Narvin,” she said, nodding, her frown intensifying, “Now, the left hand, and when you move it, I will start to pull you up.”

He nodded, swallowing. “Are… you sure you’re secure up there?”

She glared at him. “I would not pull you up if I was not certain I could do so safely. Now hush, and get ready.”

He nodded again. She shifted position, her grip on the belt tightening, her posture tensing, and he took another deep breath.

“Now!”

Wincing, and trying not to scream, he let go of the guttering, and scraped his knuckles against the brick wall in his haste to reunite his hands. He grabbed the belt, swinging wildly and giving in to the uncontrollable urge to yell in terror.

Mercifully, he didn’t seem to be headed downwards. However, he didn’t seem to be heading upwards either. He simply hung there, suspended in mid-air, feet flailing, arms aching, the belt swinging him alarmingly from side to side.

He slipped down the belt by a millimetre, and he clenched it even tighter. He really didn’t seem to be heading upwards. At all. He slipped a little closer towards the ground.

“ _Leela! PULL!_ ”

“I _am_ pulling!”

“Well pull harder, then!”

“What do you _think_ I am doing?” she growled.

“Oh, I don’t know, sightseeing? Pull!”

“ _I AM!”_

Slowly, he bobbed upwards, still swaying alarmingly. His ascent was punctuated by the sounds of growling, heaving, and uncharitable muttering from above, and after bashing his head on the gutter and scraping his face on the tiles, he flopped onto the rooftop more limply than a dead speelsnape.

He shuddered, groaning. His arms ached, his hearts were still beating worryingly fast, his fingers had cramped painfully, as if he was still grasping the gutter, his head was throbbing, and worst of all, he could feel Leela’s gaze burning a hole in the back of his skull.

“You… saved my life,” he said, once his breathing had calmed enough for him to speak without his voice shaking, “thank you, Leela.”

“Hmm.”

He sighed. “And… I’m sorry for shouting. I take it back. You _were_ pulling.”

“Hm!” she said, in far more satisfied tones. “Are you alright?”

“Probably.”

“Good. I do not know if you heard me before you fell, but I have found the clockwork. It is on that chimney stack over there.”

He presumed she was gesturing towards it, but wasn’t quite ready to look up to find out. Instead, he stared at the reassuringly solid roof tile below his nose.

“Wait there whilst you recover, I will get it,” she continued, and then she was gone, scrambling upwards until she was at the very top of the pointed roof.

He tore his gaze away from the tiles to watch after her. His mouth dropped open and his hearts-rate increased again as she nimbly made her way along the very pinnacle of the building to the chimney stack, retrieved something from it and waved it at him, before carefully pocketing it.

She did not return to him straight away, choosing instead to lean against the chimney and stare out across the city, craning to see something below her. She grinned, and straightened, and made her way back to him as nimbly as she had gone.

She perched on the top and looked down at him, still slumped awkwardly against the tiles. She patted the space next to her. “Join me, Narvin. But… perhaps throw me the belt first?”

He pulled a face, but did as bidden, and soon enough, he had scrambled up the roof and was sitting by her side. She wound an arm around his waist with a sigh.

“Could you show me the clockwork?”

She fished it out of her pocket, and held it out. It was another cogwheel, smaller than the first one had been.

“Well done for spotting it,” he said, and she put it safely away in her pocket again, “Two down, thirty-eight to go.”

“Yes,” she said, “we will have found Romana in no time.”

They stared across the rooftops in silence, watching as the fog drifted slowly in from the distant river. This was a different city to the one they had left behind, only a few days ago. It was sixty years older. The skyline had changed. Whole sections of the city had disappeared, reduced to empty shells and rubble in wartime, and blocky towers were springing up in their place. The rumble of petrol engines had replaced the clatter of horses’ hooves, and the air smelled and tasted even more strongly of pollutants than it had before. They caught at the back of Narvin’s throat, and he wrinkled his nose.

“Um.” Leela sounded hesitant; embarrassed, even. How very unlike her.

He raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“There are stairs.”

He turned his head to her slowly. “What?”

“Beyond the chimneys. There is a short drop to get to them, but there is an outdoor metal staircase. We can use that to get down.”

Narvin stared at her. “Do you mean to tell me that there’s a fire escape?”

She looked sheepish. “Well…”

He shook his head in disbelief. “We could have saved ourselves all that hassle and indignity of climbing out the window. And… possibly everything else that happened after that, too.”

“I did not know it was there!” Leela protested, glaring at him, “And neither did you!”

He sighed. “No, you’re right. We thought the clockwork was inside the building, at first. We had no reason to think it was on the roof, so we had no reason to look for ways up here before we went inside.”

“Yes.”

He sighed again, and rubbed his eyes. “Do you know what the worst thing about all of this is?”

“What?”

“The worst thing is that this wasn’t even the first time I’ve found myself hanging off the edge of a high building. Why is it that I always seem to end up falling off roofs?”

She snorted softly. “That is obvious.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is it? Would you care to enlighten me?”

“For a _coordinator_ you are not very coordinated,” she said dryly, “I sometimes think you do not know how to use your feet properly.”

“Oh, thank you so much.”

“It is no problem,” she said lightly.

“Hmm.”

“Shall we go?”

“An excellent suggestion. Lead the way.”

She did so, with the grace and nimble feet of a warrior. Narvin followed after her in far more wobbly a fashion than could be considered dignified, and together they made their way back to the ground, before returning to the safety of the TARDIS.

* * *

Leela lay collapsed on a squashy sofa in the living area, propped up against a bright green inflatable cushion, idly chewing a currant bun. She was exhausted, and her arms ached. Narvin was heavier than he looked. She hoped the remaining thirty-eight clockwork-hunting missions were not so eventful, otherwise they would both be completely drained of energy by the time it came to putting the mechanism together. They would be of no use to Romana unconscious.

Narvin wandered in, wincing.

“Are you alright?”

“My arms hurt.”

“So do mine, from pulling you up.”

“Ah.” He eyed her prone form. “May I join you?”

She crammed the last of the bun into her mouth, dusted the crumbs away, and opened her arms. He collapsed on top of her with a sigh of relief, shifting position until they were both comfortable, his head resting against her chest, and gave a groan of exhaustion.

“Was it always like this?” he asked, his voice muffled.

“Was what always like what?”

“Travelling with the Doctor. Was it always this tiring?”

Leela laughed. “Sometimes, I suppose. Not all the time. And I do not think I noticed when it was. I was so young, so full of energy.”

Narvin snorted softly. “I think I’ve forgotten what that feels like.”

“I felt it again a little when I was Lily, but yes, I know what you mean. My travels with the Doctor were so long ago, so far into my past. So much has happened since. I sometimes think that leaving the Doctor to stay on Gallifrey was only the beginning of it all. The end of my travels, yes, but the beginning of something else entirely.”

“Mmm. I suppose it was, in a way.” He sighed, nuzzling against her, and she ran a hand through the hair at the back of his head.

“Your hair is getting long again.”

“Oh. Would you mind cutting it for me, later? Try not to get too carried away this time, though.”

She snorted. “I do not know what you mean.”

He raised his head enough to meet her gaze and give her a very pointed and deeply unimpressed glare. “The last time you cut my hair you practically made me bald.”

“You are exaggerating. It was not _that_ bad.”

“You weren’t the one who had to answer repeated questions about why I – or rather, why Neville –had taken to wearing hats indoors.”

“You did not _have_ to hide it. I liked it. I thought it made you look very… rugged and dashing.”

“It looked ridiculous!”

“So you keep saying. Yet you still want me to cut your hair anyway?”

“Yes. I… I trust you, Leela, you know I do. Just… maybe don’t cut it quite so short this time?”

She sniffed. “Very well. Do you want me to do it now?”

He shook his head, before lowering it to rest against her chest once more. “No. I’m too tired to move. Do it later, perhaps.”

“Alright.”

She shifted her legs from beneath him so her ankles were resting on his legs, trapping him against her, and she resumed stroking his hair. Her mind wandered back to the day’s misadventure, and she swallowed back the fear that had rushed through her when Narvin had fallen off the rooftop. She had come so close to losing him, again. But this time, there had been no daleks or monsters, no Time Lords, vampires or Chancellery Guards to fight against to save his life. No foes or enemies at all, simply gravity, and the scientific laws of the Universe.

Somehow, that was infinitely more terrifying than if she had been faced with the combined legions of all the hordes of evil the universe had to offer. A slippery rooftop and the simple force of gravity were not so easily fought against. Seeing the empty space where he had been only seconds before, she had felt so helpless. It had taken the welcome sight of his trembling white fingers clinging to the gutter, holding on for dear life, to shake her from the all-consuming helplessness and spur her into action.

The hand in his hair faltered, coming to rest at the back of his neck, and she held him tighter. He squeezed her waist in return. She forced herself to stop thinking about his near-fatal fall, and turned her mind instead to the best part of the day’s misadventure.

Seeing their TARDIS looking as the Doctor’s always had had lifted her spirits far more than she could ever have predicted it would – as had seeing Narvin’s less than enthusiastic reaction to it. There was something endlessly reassuring about that familiar blue box, even if it had been only a temporary disguise conjured up by their TARDIS’s fully functional chameleon circuits. Thinking of it sent her mind wandering again, back to the two people who had been at the forefront of her thoughts more than usual, today.

“We did not see Ace and the Doctor, after all.”

“No.”

“I do not know whether I am happy about that or not. I would have liked to see her. But you were right: it would have been strange, seeing her so young. She would have seemed a stranger to us. And I did not know the Doctor as he was when she knew him.”

“If it helps, you’re hardly missing out. When I met him, I found him to be as much a pain in the backside as he was in all his other incarnations.”

She snorted softly. “I often wish I had seen you meet him, you know. Not the Lord Burner Doctor on that horrible other Gallifrey, he does not count, but the _real_ Doctor. I think I would have found it very entertaining.”

“Would you indeed?” he muttered. “Charming.”

“That is the very opposite of what you would have been to him, and you know it.”

“Oh, very amusing,” he said, shifting position so his head now rested more on her shoulder, and running a hand lightly down her arm. “You know, I’ve just thought of a definite positive to us not having run into the Doctor and Ace today.”

“Oh?”

“We didn’t run into any daleks either.”

Leela was silent for a moment, as she tried to suppress a shiver. It did not work, and Narvin gripped her tighter. She nuzzled the top of his head, and his hair prickled against her cheeks.

“That is a relief,” she managed eventually. “I do not think I am ready to face another dalek, not yet.”

“I’d be _delighted_ if we never met another one ever again.”

“Oh yes. But knowing our luck, that is too much to hope for, I think.”

“We do seem to attract trouble. Well. When I say _we_ , I mean _you_. I had a quiet life until you and Romana came along.”

Leela snorted. “Oh yes, a quiet life climbing your way up the backstabbing ranks of the CIA. I am sure that was _very_ peaceful indeed.”

He sighed. “I suppose I was asking for that. What I meant was that you two clearly spent far too long hanging around with the Doctor, attracting trouble and danger and thoroughly ridiculous scenarios wherever you landed. And then you’re both on Gallifrey, and suddenly trouble and danger and thoroughly ridiculous scenarios are following me around too. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve said it’s contagious.”

Leela laughed. “Yes, but all that trouble and danger knocked some sense into your ridiculous Time Lord skull, so it cannot all have been bad.”

“No,” he said softly, and shifted position again so the tip of his nose brushed against hers.

He met her eyes, his expression serious. “No, that was all down to you, to you and Romana. Being shot at and blown up and threatened with extermination merely increased my appreciation for being alive. It was you and Romana who changed the way I thought about things –”

“–Knocked some sense into you, you mean.”

He gave a gentle, weary sigh. “Yes, if you insist. It was you and Romana who knocked some sense into me. And even then, Romana was still, for all her progressive ideas and beliefs, a Time Lord at hearts. But you?”

His brow creased and he ran a finger down her cheek. “You took one look at the way things were, at the people trying to make you more like them – more like _us_ , like Gallifreyans – and you decided to remain yourself, no matter what was said about you, whilst all the time learning, growing stronger. You showed me a better way of doing things, a better way of being. Not to mention the fact that I would have died years ago, if it hadn’t been for you. And for all of that…”

He swallowed. “For that, Leela, I shall be eternally grateful to you. I was disagreeable, at the best of times – I suppose, in many ways, I still am – and you gave me your friendship, and even your love. My friend. My _wife_. And _that’s_ not something I thought I’d ever call _anybody_.” He took her hand from his waist and kissed it gently, before raising an eyebrow and giving her a wry smile. “And for all that I complain about the Doctor, well… without him I would never have met you, so I suppose, despite all the headaches and paperwork he’s caused me over the years, he has my eternal thanks too.”

He frowned, and wrinkled his nose. “Don’t tell him I said that though, if we ever run in to him. I’d never hear the end of it.”

Leela smiled, a lump in her throat, knowing that a Time Lord invoking eternity as a reference to a length of time had far more weight behind it than a human doing the same. After all, Time Lords were fully aware of the progression of Time. They knew exactly what Eternity meant. It was serious, sombre, forever, not something to be tossed around lightly. She blinked back the moisture in her eyes. Clearly Narvin’s latest brush with death had affected him more than he was letting on.

She leaned forwards and kissed him on the nose, and his eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled at her.

“Don’t worry Narvin,” she whispered, “I won’t breathe a word.”


	6. Old Foes

The next couple of weeks passed in a blur of strange places, far-off worlds, wildernesses, spaceships and other peculiar places. Sometimes, finding the next piece of clockwork was relatively straightforward, but most of the time it seemed far more difficult than it needed to be, with their problems ranging from mild (if occasionally painful) annoyances and frustrations, to various potentially fatal dangers, to the downright ridiculous and bizarre.

So far, their increasingly long list of accidents, incidents, and general mishaps included the day they had both got badly sunburned on a desert world that the TARDIS had informed them was a cold and frozen wasteland, getting locked in the cargo hold of an interstellar freighter, being shot at by angry robots on an abandoned research base on a long-forgotten moon, Narvin being chased by cows, and their search of a series of stunningly beautiful, glittery caves resulting in them finding glittery rock dust clinging to their hair and clothing for days.

But, as Leela had pointed out one afternoon, as they stood neck-deep in a rather putrid bog in the middle of a jungle infested with biting insects, at least they had a rough idea of what it was they were looking for. She remembered Romana telling her about the search for the Key to Time, and how that had been made difficult by all the segments being disguised as other things. Searching for pieces of clockwork hidden in places they shouldn’t be seemed easy, compared to that.

Of course, the following day, when they found themselves in the middle of a clockwork manufacturing factory in Switzerland, Narvin had dryly remarked that if their quarry had been disguised then perhaps it wouldn’t be quite so bad after all. After six hours searching the entire factory for what turned out to be a tiny and wholly unremarkable spring, Leela almost found herself agreeing with him.

Now, the hunt for the next component had brought them to a bustling space station, floating out in the middle of nowhere, crowded with beings of all species. After several fruitless hours of searching, they had come to a stop on a walkway above the station’s busy main street. Below them, all was a hive of activity, as visitors, residents, and station workers alike went about their business, but up here, the pace was slower, and calmer. The walkway ran beside a series of large oval windows, and several people, Leela included, had stopped to stare out beyond the station, towards the unfamiliar stars.

Leela idly fiddled with her wedding ring, her mind wandering as she watched a bulky ship approach the station to dock. Recently, she had been thinking of the ring as _hers_ , not as Lily’s, far more frequently than she used to, back in London when they were still adjusting to living the lives of Lily and Neville. Then, it had been yet another reminder of the fact she was living a life that was not, and never had been, truly hers. Now, she found herself unable to take it off.

Despite her wanting them to marry again, but properly this time, using their own names and by both Sevateem and Gallifreyan customs, she still felt as if they _were_ married, even if neither of their minds had been present when the ceremony had taken place. Living together as they had been, both as themselves, and before, when they were Lily and Neville, had cemented the bond that had formed between them long before the Time War into something unbreakable, their lives entangled like two vines that had grown entwined together and had become stronger because of it. Narvin still wore the ring she’d had made for him after their memories had returned, so she knew that in his own quiet manner, he felt the same. They were, in their own strange way, married, even if was not in a way that would be legally recognised by either of their peoples. Repeating the ceremony as themselves, and in a way that was more familiar to them, would simply reaffirm their bond to each other, regardless of which set of customs they did it by.

She wondered, not for the first time, whether Romana could perform the ceremony for them. Leela was sure she would be willing. After all, she was their friend, _and_ she had been President once, which, given Gallifrey’s destruction, would make the deed as official as they could manage – something that she was certain Narvin would find reassuring. Of course, for Romana to be able perform the ceremony, they had to find her first – and this particular task was once again proving to be needlessly difficult.

Narvin stood beside her, with his back to the stars, leaning back against the edge of the window, frowning and muttering under his breath as he fiddled with the scanner. They had been struggling with signal interference since the moment they had arrived, something which was, according to Narvin, due to a combination of too much interstellar communications traffic and a peculiarity in the fabric of local space. Narvin gave a loud tut of impatience, and she tore her gaze away from the stars. He was glaring at the scanner furiously.

“Have you had any luck?”

“None whatsoever. There’s interference coming from all angles, and it’s not exactly the most sophisticated device I’ve ever made; all this confusion is too much for it to handle. It really does not like this station – and I can’t say I blame it. There are too many people here.”

“ _That_ is not why the scanner is not working, Narvin.”

He sniffed. “That’s not the point.” The scanner gave a feeble bleep, and Narvin wiggled it hopefully. He started forwards with purpose, but stumbled after only a single step.

“What the…?” He looked down to see what he had tripped on, and his face crumpled in confusion. “What _is_ that?”

Leela picked the thing up and held it level with her face. It waved at her.

“It’s alive!” she gasped.

“It… certainly seems that way.”

The alien was a pudgy white blob, with beady black eyes, stubby arms and legs, and only one tooth, like a baby. It was waving one of its stumpy arms at them, cooing.

Leela and Narvin looked at each other in bemusement, and Leela gingerly lowered the alien to the ground. It blinked up at them, before happily waddling away in the direction of the nearest bar. They watched it go.

Leela raised her eyebrows at Narvin. “What was that, exactly?”

Narvin shook his head. “You know, I really have no idea.” He sighed. “Can we find somewhere to sit down? I need to be able to open the scanner up and rewire it, if I’m going to have any chance of getting it working, and I’d much prefer to do that somewhere with a table.”

Leela nodded. “Yes. We could get a drink? There are plenty of cafés and things here.”

Narvin nodded, pocketing the scanner. “Lead the way.”

They made their way down to the main street, weaving through the crowds, ducking aside to avoid being knocked over by a rough-looking alien freighter crew, and after passing several food-selling establishments that one or both of them did not much like the look of, they were eventually pointed towards a mercifully quiet café area at one end of the main street.

Leela wrinkled her nose when they got there, as she realised why the blue alien who had directed them there had said it had nearly limitless choice and absolutely no chance of being insulted by the serving staff. The café was supplied solely by food machines. Narvin chuckled, and she scowled at him.

“We can always try somewhere else?”

She shook her head, and sighed. “No. It is quiet here. This will do.”

“As you wish.” Narvin wandered off to do battle with the food machines, and Leela found them a table half-hidden in the very back corner.

It was not that busy, fortunately – the only other people there were a couple seated at the opposite side of the café, and they seemed far too busy having a loud, passionate and flirtatious debate to pay Leela and Narvin the slightest bit of attention. The café had multiple entrances, with its front opened out onto the main street, and so tucked away in the back corner as she was, Leela could sit and watch some of the many passers-by whilst remaining unnoticed.

She always found places like this, or like the market where she had got her new knives, where so many different species intermingled comfortably alongside each other, to be fascinating. Every time she thought that the universe had run out of sentient beings for her to meet, she stumbled across five new alien races she had never come across before, most friendly, some not. It was one of the things she had missed about travelling with the Doctor, whilst she was on Gallifrey. On the average day in the Capitol, the most variation between individuals was the colour of their robes, and how long they could drone on for before they sent her to sleep.

Narvin sat placed two steaming mugs on the table and sat down opposite her, before fishing the scanner back out of his pocket and dumping it unceremoniously on the table. Leela sniffed her coffee suspiciously, and Narvin took a sip of his.

“It’s not bad,” he told her.

She wrinkled her nose. “It is pretend food, even if it smells real.”

Narvin shook his head in fond despair, and began fiddling with the scanner. Leela watched him for a few moments, before braving her coffee. It tasted as convincingly coffee-like as the coffee from the TARDIS food machines, but like the coffee from the TARDIS food machines, she still did not fully trust it.

“You know, it’s still not too late to go back to that other place we stopped at.”

She shook her head. “The barman looked at me funny. If we returned, I might have ended up punching him.”

Narvin fought back a grin, and failed. “I shouldn’t find that amusing, but I do. But no, you’re right, we’re probably safer here. It’s best we avoid making a scene wherever possible, especially in places like this, where there are so many people around. Getting arrested by station security would be very inconvenient.” He took another sip of his coffee, and prised the back of the scanner open. It gave a woeful beep.

“Will you be able to get it working again?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. Perhaps. If I can fine-tune it, to filter out the interference, then we might have a chance. If not… we might have to hack into the station’s main computer network, connect it to our scanner, and search for the clockwork that way.”

“And hope no-one notices?”

He nodded, grimacing. Their arrival had set alarms blaring across the station, with security teams and technicians in colourful uniforms swarming around the area where the TARDIS had materialised, whilst Leela and Narvin had waited nervously in the console room, watching on the view-screen. Clearly, the technology here was sophisticated enough to pick up on the temporal distortions preceding a TARDIS materialisation, but not so advanced that it could locate the TARDIS once it had arrived and blended into the surroundings.

Given how their arrival had caused enough upset and confusion already, Leela could not blame Narvin for being reluctant to cause any more. It was better that they came and went unnoticed.

Something brushed against her side, and she was instantly alert, her body acting before her mind had even registered that someone had their hand in her pocket. She grabbed their arm, twisted, rose swiftly to her feet and slammed the would-be thief face down on the table, sending her coffee flying.

Narvin, who had his mug raised half way to his mouth, froze in surprise.

“He tried to rob me,” Leela said, by way of explanation.

“How unwise.”

“I am sure he is realising that, now.”

“Indeed I am, my friends,” said the thief, his voice muffled by the table, “A thousand apologies to you both.”

Leela frowned. There was something unsettlingly and unpleasantly familiar about that voice. It sent prickles across the back of her neck, and spoke of dangers from long ago. She _knew_ that voice. She was sure of it.

“If I let you stand,” she warned, “you will _not_ run. I am armed.”

“Very well,” said the thief, “I throw myself at your mercy.”

She loosened her grip, and he stood, wincing and rubbing his neck. He did a double-take upon seeing Narvin and Leela, and stared at them, his eyes wide with shock.

Leela gasped, her hand immediately settling on the hilt of her knife. “You!”

“Well, well, well,” said the thief, a calculating grin slowly spreading across his face, “Coordinator Narvin, and Leela. What an unexpected surprise."

Narvin rose slowly to his feet, his expression sour. “Mephistopheles Arkadian.”

Arkadian grinned. “The one and only.”

Narvin and Leela exchanged a look of resignation. In the corner of her eye, Arkadian twitched, as if planning his escape route. Before he even had a chance to blink, Leela grabbed his shoulder. Painfully.

“Do not even think of running, for you will not get far.” She glared at him, and he recoiled.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“You moved.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “And how exactly did you work that one out? I know your hearing is good, but it’s not _that_ good.”

“I saw you.”

“Very amusing.”

“I am not joking.”

Arkadian blinked. Cautiously, he pulled his shoulder from her grasp, and stepped to one side, and then to the other. Leela did not break eye contact. His mouth dropped open.

“You can _see_!”

“Yes, I can – and far better than you.”

“But you were _blind_!”

“I was.”

“But… but… that’s impossible! How..?” Though Arkadian’s face was all astonishment, there was a glint in his eye which suggested he was already calculating the profit margins that could be gained from such an impossible cure.

Leela smiled a deliberately slow and dangerous smile, a smile that showed far too many of her teeth. “I drank the blood of a vampire.”

As she had hoped, he stepped backwards in alarm. Narvin grinned.

Arkadian recovered awkwardly, and brushed invisible dust off his shirt to disguise his fear. “That’s preposterous.”

Leela said nothing, but continued to smile dangerously at him. He swallowed.

“Well. It’s been wonderful seeing you both again, but I really must be going-”

“Not so fast, Arkadian,” Narvin said, clamping his hand on Arkadian’s shoulder, and manoeuvring him into his empty chair, “Sit down. There’s still the small matter of you trying to steal from Leela.”

Narvin pulled a chair from an empty table and sat down beside Leela, so they were sitting opposite Arkadian. That way, he was backed into the corner, and would not easily be able to escape.

“Ah. Yes. Sorry about that. I didn’t recognise either of you.” He glanced at Narvin, his eyes glinting in amusement, “You’re all covered in _facial hair_ , and Leela’s wearing normal clothes, instead of those old animal skin dresses of hers. And speaking of normal clothes… You’re dressed like a human, Narvin. Whatever happened to your robes? I always had a soft spot for those CIA robes. They weren’t as chillingly dignified and threatening as you all seemed to think they were, you know – they made you look like a penguin.”

Narvin glared at him, his hands tightening into fists and his shoulders tensing. Leela shot him a look, and brushed her leg against his, in warning and reassurance alike. Whilst she would pay good money to see Narvin punch Arkadian in the face, they could not afford to draw attention to themselves any more than they already had done. Besides, it was all she could do to restrain _herself_ from punching Arkadian; she was not sure whether she could restrain Narvin too. Narvin relaxed a little, and Leela purposely changed the direction of the conversation.

“You say you did not recognise us: does this mean that you only steal from people you do not know?” she said, “That is not how I remember you. You care as much for the feelings of those you know as for the feelings of those you do not know. You do not care at all.”

“Truer words have never been spoken, my dear Leela, but that was not quite what I meant. If I’d known it was you, I would have swiftly removed myself to the other side of the station, hacked into the security mainframe and monitored you from a safe distance. That way I might have been able to avoid the unfortunate situation I now find myself in: stuck with you two, facing the inevitable grilling.”

Narvin snorted softly. “So, how exactly did you end up here?” he asked. “And don’t waste time spinning your elaborate tales; I’m really not in the mood.”

Leela suppressed a smile. Narvin had switched to Slimy Politician Mode, and for a brief moment, it was as if they were back on Gallifrey, in his office, with him wearing his black and white robes – which she thought had always made him look _extremely_ dignified, whatever Arkadian might say – threatening some minor Time Lord into revealing their part in some scheme or other.

“Well, it’s quite simple, really. I was in a TARDIS full of Temporal Weapons, and one of them malfunctioned-”

“That should not have been possible. As I recall, they were held in stasis.”

“Oh, he doesn’t miss a trick, does he? Indeed they were, Coordinator, indeed they were. But you see, the good Doctor Elbon – or rather, what was left of him – was trying his very best to throttle me, and one of us must have knocked a switch in the struggle. Well, one of the weapons malfunctioned, followed by a rather large kaboom, and… well. I got caught up in some sort of temporal whatsit, and eventually ended up here, wherever _here_ is. I’m stuck with no funds, no resources, no kindly living relatives to borrow from, nothing. Nada. Zilch.”

“Forgive us if we don’t pity you. I very much doubt you’ve let any of that stop you from attempting to scam unsuspecting tourists, or pickpocketing people, or whatever it is you’re doing now.”

“My dear Coordinator, as if I’d do such terrible things. I could never be so callous.”

“The only reason you’re only speaking to us at all is because you made the mistake of trying to steal from Leela.”

“Ah. Yes. Point taken. Alright, I’m taking advantage of the occasional lost tourist. What can I say? I’m a crook. It’s what I do.”

Narvin sniffed. “Funnily enough, I hadn’t forgotten. Although quite frankly, I’m surprised you haven’t founded an entire criminal empire here yet.”

“Alas not. The little chap with the big ears who runs the bar seems to have that side of things covered, more’s the pity.”

“How unfortunate for you,” Narvin said, sounding smugly unsympathetic.

“Oh, it is, it is. He serves bloody good wine though, far better than that muck President Matthias served me the last time I was on Gallifrey. And I thought you were supposed to be the civilised ones.”

Narvin sighed.

“So, Coordinator: I have a question for you.”

Narvin’s lip curled in disinterest. “Oh yes?”

“Yes. So, am I to take it that it’s been a while since the last time either of you saw me?”

“Yes.”

“Mmm, I thought so. Now, Narvin. That _beard_. Do you really think it’s working for you?”

“I– What?”

“Well, with a face as unfortunate as yours, I know you don’t really have much to work with, but a beard? Really? Is this some sort of mid-regeneration crisis, or whatever it is you Time Lords do?”

Narvin raised an eyebrow delicately, in an eerily Braxiatel-like manner. “My appearance is of little concern to me, and it should be of no concern whatsoever to you. It’s really none of your business.” He hesitated, his gaze flickering to Leela and away again, his cheeks becoming faintly pink. “But if you insist upon raising the subject? Well, my wife likes it. That’s good enough for me.”

Arkadian, who had just stolen Narvin’s half-drunk coffee, inhaled in shock mid-sip and started choking. They watched him, faintly amused. Leela was surprised Narvin had brought the subject of their marriage up, given how secret they had kept their relationship in the past, and given how much they both despised Arkadian. Clearly Narvin had not been able to resist seeing their old foe’s reaction. And given how the simple revelation that Narvin was married had turned Arkadian’s face pinker than a Panopticon packed with Patrexes, Leela couldn’t blame him for mentioning it.

Once his spluttering fit had finally subsided, Arkadian managed, “ _You?_ Have a _wife?_ ”

“That _is_ what I just said.”

“So, Coordinator Narvin is _married_. Good God. I pity the poor woman, I really do. Any woman would have to be blind to tolerate being married to _you_.”

Slowly, Leela stood up, one hand drifting towards the hilt of her knife, the other hand sliding around the back of Narvin’s neck and coming to rest lightly upon his shoulder.

“As we have already established,” she said coolly, “I _was_ blind. But I am not anymore.”

Arkadian’s jaw dropped, and he boggled at them in wide-eyed astonishment. Once the initial impact had worn off, his eyes started flickering rapidly between the two of them, his face scrunching in confusion, disbelief, calculation, and – Leela was pleased to see – more than a hint of fear.

“But- but-” he sputtered at them, “but you _hate_ each other!”

Narvin leaned towards Leela and reached his hand up, letting his fingers curl around her hand on his shoulder. “Much like Leela’s blindness, that was true once. But not anymore.”

Narvin sounded bizarrely calm, Leela thought, given that they were engaging in what was a _very_ public display of affection, with far more obvious touching involved than the usual subtle hand-holding, in clear view of someone they despised, not to mention in front of however many passing aliens who happened to look their way. She glanced at him, and noted that his face was not even faintly pink now. She frowned, and turned her gaze to the back of his neck. It was glowing extremely pink, quite possibly even more alarmingly heliotrope than Arkadian’s face had turned earlier.

Leela resisted rolling her eyes. Sometimes it was easy to forget how vaguely unsettling Time Lords could be, right up until they did something like regenerating, or using their respiratory bypass system, or carefully regulating the flow of their blood to prevent themselves from blushing.

“ _Well,”_ said Arkadian, who seemed to have regained his composure, “I didn’t see _that_ one coming. I had no idea I was quite so behind with all the latest juicy gossip from Gallifrey. I still pity you, mind – I can’t imagine the good Coordinator here is of any use to you when it comes to… ah, how shall I put it? Certain… _husbandly duties_. He’s far too uptight.”

Narvin lost control of the blush, which enthusiastically returned to his face in angry red blotches. His hand left Leela’s and thudded onto the table, balled into a tight fist, and he made an inarticulate spluttering noise, which she suspected was supposed to have been a coherent sentence, but had got spectacularly lost somewhere between his brain and his mouth.

She tightened her grip on his shoulder, to reassure him, or to let him know she was as furious as he was, or both, she wasn’t sure. Leela gritted her teeth and took a deep breath, forcing herself to remain calm, despite the sudden urge to do a far better job at throttling Arkadian than the zombified Doctor Elbon had done. Giving into the anger would attract too much attention, and she was far too old to be getting into a fight with half the station’s security detachment. At the only other occupied table in the café, the human man and his alien companion had given up loudly debating the finer points of literature, and had started blatantly eavesdropping instead. Leela ignored them.

“If I remember correctly,” she said coolly, glaring at Arkadian and running her fingers slowly and obviously along the hilt of her knife, “all of your many past marriages were failures, with all of your former wives left hating you… I wonder why that is?”

“Ah…” Arkadian began, as his face turned faintly purple.

“Meanwhile,” Leela continued, as if he had never spoken, “Narvin and I have been through a great many things, both together and alone. We have found happiness together, after surviving so much pain. I find Narvin to be a good husband, in _all_ possible ways.”

Arkadian opened his mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out.

“Oh, and there is one more thing,” Leela said, letting more than a hint of fearsome warrior enter her voice, “If you offer Narvin insult, you offer me insult too. And if you offer either of us insult again, than you shall feel the cold metal of my blade slicing through your skin. Do you understand?”

Arkadian nodded slowly. “Perfectly,” he croaked.

“Good.” Leela sat down again, and gave him a smug, ferocious smile. This was not vengeance of the sort she had once hoped to inflict upon him, the sort where her knife plunged slowly and painfully into his heart, but it was vengeance nonetheless, and it was far more satisfying than she ever could have expected.

* * *

Watching Arkadian quail and wilt in the face of Leela’s threats was really very satisfying, Narvin thought, even though the whole sorry conversation could have been avoided if Narvin had kept his mouth shut and not mentioned their marriage in the first place. He wasn’t sure quite why he had mentioned it; all he knew was that knowing that Arkadian saw them as the people they had been when they knew him, and not as the people they were now, made him uncomfortable in ways he couldn’t quite articulate.

“So,” said Arkadian, “aside from your… ah… happy union… What’s the latest news from Gallifrey? Just how much have I missed? I take it you sorted out that bit of bother with the Dogma Virus?”

Narvin’s stomach sank, and he exchanged a glance with Leela. She had her haunted face on, as he thought of it. It was the face she wore when she was too tired, felt too old, when all she had seen had caught up with her. He knew how she felt. As far as Arkadian knew, Gallifrey was still standing – perhaps overrun by Free Time zombies, and still partially in ruins thanks to the Civil War, but otherwise fine. Narvin wasn’t sure he wanted to admit the truth.

Arkadian continued rambling on, oblivious to their discomfort. “No, don’t tell me: that rogue Braxiatel has somehow swept the Lady Romana off her feet and they’ve waltzed off into the sunset, and all the Time Lords who survived the virus are suitably scandalised.”

“Nothing so utterly preposterous has happened, I assure you,” Narvin muttered.

Arkadian shrugged, “Given the unexpected picture of domestic bliss before me, I thought it was best to ask.”

Narvin sighed, and rubbed his temple. He wasn’t really sure of what to say. Perhaps it was fortunate that Arkadian seemed content to spew his own wild imaginings at them; at least this way they could simply nod in the right places and let him think whatever he wanted to think.

“So, what _did_ happen, in the end?” Arkadian held up his hands with an unnecessarily dramatic flair. “No, let me guess: Braxiatel no doubt had some secret cure or another hidden up his sleeves, everyone was cured without losing their ability to regenerate, and you all lived happily ever after – until the next political crisis struck, that is.”

Narvin sighed wearily. “Something like that.”

Arkadian snorted, satisfied. “Yes, I thought it would be along those lines. Braxiatel really doesn’t do things by halves, the manipulative so-and-so.”

Narvin caught Leela’s eye, and she pulled a face. The years spent as Neville Jones swam before him, followed by images of merrily dancing clockwork, and his fist twitched with the irresistible urge to connect with Irving Braxiatel’s nose.

“Now,” said Arkadian, his eyes glittering with calculation. Annoyingly, he seemed to have rediscovered his confidence. Leela would have to threaten him again. “What brings _you_ here? You know what misfortunes poor Arkadian has suffered to bring him to such a place as this, but what would the Coordinator of the Celestial Intervention Agency want with some alien space station?”

Narvin could feel a vein throbbing in his temple. “That’s classified,” he said shortly.

“Are you here on a mission? Or is this some sort of badly planned, low-budget honeymoon?”

Narvin scowled at him. “It’s a mission. And it’s classified.”

“Oh, you’re no fun,” said Arkadian, “Romana would have told me.”

“No she would not,” Leela said, glaring, “She would have threatened you with imprisonment.”

Arkadian looked insulted. “That only happened once! Or twice.”

“And after she had done that, _I_ would have threatened you with a knife in your guts.” She tilted her head, and her glare intensified. “I still might.”

“You wound me,” Arkadian said, placing a hand on his heart in mock sincerity, “And after all I’ve done for you over the years.”

Leela glared at him so fiercely that Narvin flinched, even though her fury was not aimed at him. “You have done nothing for me. You do nothing except lie, and cheat and scheme. You think of no-one but yourself.”

Arkadian shrugged. “Oh alright, you’ve got me there. But are you _sure_ you can’t find it in that warrior’s heart of yours to-”

He faltered, staring at something behind Narvin. He gulped, shrinking in his seat. Narvin turned around. A stern-looking security officer was looming over them, with a nervous-looking alien by his side, who pointed a trembling hand towards Arkadian.

“It was him, I’m sure of it.”

“Ah,” said Arkadian.

The security officer grunted, surveying Arkadian with satisfaction. “And these two?” he asked, gesturing at Leela and Narvin.

The alien shrugged. “I do not recognise them. Perhaps they are his accomplices?”

Narvin was struck simultaneously with the delightful realisation that Arkadian was facing imminent arrest, and the considerably less delightful realisation that only some very quick thinking would prevent Narvin and Leela from joining him.

“Accomplices!” he said, in a suitably outraged tone, which was not too difficult to manufacture, given that the insinuation that he, Narvin, could _ever_ be considered an accomplice to _Arkadian_ , was highly insulting.

“ _Accomplices_!” he repeated, rising to his feet, “I assure you, officer, that is not the case. This man tried to rob my wife! And then he drank my coffee!”

A spluttered coughing sound from besides him told him that Leela was trying her very best not to laugh. He shuffled his feet awkwardly and tried to appear suitably humble and victimised for the security officer.

The officer folded his arms, and tilted his head in disbelief. “He tried to steal from your wife… so you invited him to sit down and join you?”

Narvin sniffed. “Hardly. We wanted to find out why he’d done it.”

“Oh? And I thought that was _my_ job.” The officer’s gaze was uncomfortably piercing. He hadn’t blinked once.

“Well,” Narvin shrugged, “understanding the criminal mind is something of a hobby of mine.”

The security officer rolled his eyes. “Spare me,” he muttered, and switched his attention to Arkadian. “Stand up. Empty your pockets.”

“But-”

“Do it,” the officer growled, “ _Now_.”

Arkadian was cornered, and he knew it. Narvin had never seen him look so miserable; it was proving to be a very satisfying experience. Arkadian rose slowly to his feet and reluctantly scooped out the contents of his pockets and dumped it all on the table.

The nervous alien gave a cry of delight as he spotted whatever it was Arkadian had stolen from him, but Narvin ignored him, for there, amongst the earrings and currency and who knew what else, lay a small metal gear. He leaned closer, and caught sight of the tiny Gallifreyan numerals etched onto one of the spokes.

Leela had clearly seen it too, for she rose swiftly to her feet in a perfect fury. “But that is mine!” she gasped, and plucked the gear from the mess of objects, “I did not think he had taken anything, but he must have slipped it into his pocket! He is far craftier than he looks.” She glared at Arkadian for good measure.

He narrowed his eyes at her in return, and his gaze flickered between Leela and Narvin suspiciously. He knew perfectly well that Leela was lying through her teeth, of course he did, but there was very little they could do about that, beyond hoping that any protestations of innocence were taken as cries of denial from the guilty. After all, it was not Arkadian they needed to convince, but the stern-faced security officer.

“Oh?” the officer said, eyeing Leela suspiciously, “A piece of antiquated clockwork seems a strange thing to be carrying around in your pocket, madam, if you don’t mind me saying?”

Leela’s eyes widened. She was floundering, Narvin could tell, so he hastily took over.

“It was her father’s,” he said, wildly improvising, “he died suddenly, and it’s all she has left of him, and she finds it very difficult to talk about, officer, it’s a distressing subject.”

“I see.” The officer circled the table and clamped a firm hand on Arkadian’s shoulder. “Well, it looks like you and I are going to have a little chat – in the holding cells. There have been a considerable number of petty thefts lately, and I would dearly like some answers.”

He turned to Leela apologetically. “Madam, I am afraid I’m going to have to ask for that back in the meantime, for evidence.”

“Oh…” Leela held the gear tighter, “That will not possible, you see…” she shot a meaningful glare at Narvin.

“Our ship is due to leave the station very shortly,” Narvin said hurriedly, “and we’re really very anxious to be on our way home. But…” he glanced at Arkadian’s pile of loot on the table, “it seems to me that you have quite a lot of evidence to be getting on with.”

The security officer sniffed. “Very well. On this occasion, given the sheer number of people he’s stolen from before you, that will be acceptable.”

Leela sighed in relief. “Thank you. I am grateful.” She met Arkadian’s gaze, and he glared at her mutinously, evidently trying to calculate what she could possibly want with a bit of old clockwork.

“What will happen to him?” she asked, in a voice so perfectly innocent, that for a split second, even Narvin was fooled.

The security officer grinned in smug satisfaction. “Oh, I expect he’ll be charged, and as he’s human, he’ll probably be sent to an Earth penal colony or something.”

Narvin grinned.

Arkadian looked furious. “This is an outrage!” he said, “I’m innocent! Innocent, I tell you! I _may_ have pocketed one or two _lost_ items every now and then, but I certainly did not steal from _her_! She’s lying, I’m telling you! They’re not as innocent as they pretend to be, officer, they’re up to something, they’re Coordin-”

“Tell it to the magistrate,” the security officer said impatiently, and he hauled Arkadian away, a second officer materialising to collect the pile of stolen goods from the table before hurrying after them, and the nervous alien following in their wake.

Arkadian did not go quietly. As he was dragged along the crowded main street, he looked back at them, craning over his shoulder to shout “I will find out what you’re up to, Coordinator! President Matthias will be hearing about this, Narvin, just you wait! And Romana, and even Braxiatel!”

A rough-looking gaggle of aliens swaggered across the street, and Arkadian was obscured from view. Narvin and Leela collapsed back into their seats, and gave in to the uncontrollable urge to laugh.

“What a pleasant sight that was,” Narvin commented lightly, “Mephistopheles Arkadian, on his way to a prison cell, exactly where he belongs.”

“I know!” said Leela, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, “I was not sure we would get away with that.”

“Nor was I.”

“I did not wish to see _him_ ever again, Narvin, but I think it was worth it, just to see him being arrested.”

“Oh, it was. Mephistopheles Arkadian: once a businessman, entrepreneur, interstellar crook, owner of an Eskera Class Galaxy Slim-Skimmer with ultra-chrome attachments and go-faster stripes, reduced to picking pockets on some backwater space station, before being arrested for his troubles. It’s practically Otherstide.”

They both started giggling again.

“Would you like to check the clockwork?” Leela asked, once she’d calmed down.

He nodded, and she held it out to him. It was much the same as the others had been, with its shifting Gallifreyan numerals, and as Leela turned it, he caught sight of the serial number as well. As the scanner was not working, he risked reaching out and brushing the tip of his finger against it.

He caught the briefest image of a prison, and the slightest flash of its prisoner’s pain, and he instantly sobered, all lingering amusement completely gone.

He swallowed. “It’s what we were looking for, alright,” he said quietly, “I think we should leave now.”

Leela nodded, and they made their way back to the TARDIS. The quiet of the console room was a relief after the noise and bustle of the space station, and Narvin felt some of the tension leave his body. Leela locked the doors, Narvin pulled the lever, and they were on their way once more.

“Was it wrong of us?” Leela asked softly.

“Was what wrong?”

“We let Arkadian think that Gallifrey is still alright. I do not care for his feelings at all – indeed, I once blamed him for Andred’s death, and swore I would have vengeance – but it did not feel right, letting him think they are all still alive. I could not bring myself to speak the truth.”

“Neither could I.” Narvin fiddled with the navigational controls until they were drifting in a calm corner of the Time Vortex, before crossing to her side and placing a hand on her waist.

She sighed, and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I did not want to have to speak the truth to him, but at the same time, he just kept insulting us, so I thought that perhaps, if I said something about all that we have been through, all that we have suffered and seen and survived, he might realise that nothing he could ever say to us would hurt as much as all that has already happened. But… his insults still hurt anyway. And he could see that, and did not care, and I… could not bring myself to speak of the fate of Gallifrey anyway, and…”

She trailed off, and sighed again, pulling him closer and resting her head against his chest. “I am sorry, Narvin. I am not sure I am speaking any sense.”

“No, it’s alright. I understand.” He stroked her hair, breathing in the scent of her. “We didn’t owe him the truth, Leela; we were well within our rights not to share it. He never cared about Gallifrey or for any of its people. He saw it only in terms of opportunities to be exploited, and profit. Frankly, he didn’t _deserve_ the truth from us, especially as it would be painful to us to tell.”

She hummed in agreement. “Yes. You are right. I would not wish for us to cause each other pain, just so someone like Arkadian can know that Gallifrey is gone. I do not think this will happen, but if we _do_ come across other people we know, people we know who cared for Gallifrey and her people more than Arkadian, we should tell them. By not speaking of it to Arkadian, we have saved our energy for telling someone who truly cares.”

He held her tighter. “Yes.”

“Will you need to check the scanner before we find the next piece?”

“Yes. I’ll do that now.”

“No. Before you do, I think we should go somewhere quiet, but with places that serve _real_ food.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“I had very little of my pretend coffee before it got spilt, and you did not get to finish yours – Arkadian did.”

“Ah.”

“And besides,” she added, pulling back so she could meet his eyes, “I would like to think about something that is not the past, or clockwork, just for a few hours, and I think you would like that too. And going somewhere new, somewhere that has nothing to do with our search, might give us the distraction we both need.”

He considered this carefully. Part of him wanted to dismiss it straight away as a terrible idea, wanted to point out that their mission was urgent, and that the longer they delayed the longer Romana would suffer. But the rest of him pointed out that the scanner needed retuning anyway, and that even if it were still working they would have been unlikely to start searching for the next part today anyway, and that Leela was absolutely right, he could _definitely_ do with the distraction.

“Yes,” he said, and pressed a kiss to the centre of her forehead, “that sounds like an excellent idea.”


	7. Planet of Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for this chapter: there is uhh... An Injury, and references to blood.

“I don’t like this.”

Leela rolled her eyes. “You say that about everything.”

Narvin stopped walking, and stared at her, his face lined with tension, his brow furrowed even more than it usually was. “No, you don’t understand. I _really_ don’t like this.”

Leela folded her arms, and examined his taut expression with a critical eye. “Then tell me why. You have been acting strangely ever since the TARDIS told you where we have landed. You have not even said which planet we are on.”

Narvin looked pained. “This is Xirrillana. It was a casualty of the Time War, though we have landed many years after that. Time feels… _wrong_ here.”

Leela glanced around uneasily. All around them, walls like shards of milky-yellow opaque glass rose high into the air, with spindly, glassy tubes crossing between the walls high above their heads like bridges, and the narrow path they were on was devoid of all signs of life. Above them, the sky was colourless; it was bright yet overcast, and uncomfortably warm, as though someone were shining a powerful light through a layer of thin white tissue paper, and aiming it directly at their heads. It was not a pleasant feeling.

She squeezed his arm reassuringly, and started walking again. He followed her with obvious reluctance.

She glanced back at him. “So, if this world was hurt by the Time War, what happened here, exactly?”

Narvin sighed. “I’m not entirely sure. By that point, Romana and I had been away from Gallifrey for a long time. All I know is that there were massive temporal disruptions and alterations here, one on top of another - a side effect of a battle front elsewhere. I’ve no idea if the native species survived, or how they were affected if they did. All I do know for certain is that Time here just feels… wrong.”

“Then the sooner we find the clockwork, the better.”

“Agreed. Unfortunately, it is _definitely_ on the other side of the glass wall to our right, and I haven’t seen a single doorway.”

“Neither have I. Is there any way we could break the glass?”

“Perhaps. I’d advise against smashing it, before you even think about making _that_ particular suggestion. You could bring the whole structure down on our heads. I don’t find the thought of raining shards of glass particularly appealing.”

Leela wrinkled her nose and pulled a face at him. She briefly considered protesting against his slanderous accusations, but there was no point. She _had_ been about to suggest that they attempt to smash the glass, and there was no use denying it. He knew her too well.

Instead of protesting her innocence, she settled for placing her hands on her hips and narrowing her eyes at him. “So what would _you_ suggest?”

“I can retune the multi-purpose tool I built the other day to cut through the glass. The advantage of this particular method of entry is that we can fix the glass behind us, thus leaving it exactly as we found it. It will be as if we were never here.”

“Your… multi-purpose tool?”

“Yes.” He fished an elegant, cylindrical device out of his pocket and showed it to her. “It’s a multi-functional, sonic… implement.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So it’s a sonic screwdriver,” she said flatly.

He glared at her in outrage. “No! As I have already said, it has multiple functions. Besides, can a screwdriver cut through glass and then mend it again without leaving a trace? No, it can’t. _This_ can.”

Leela grinned at him in as maddening a fashion as she could muster. “If you say so. But it still _looks_ like a sonic screwdriver to me.”

He glared at her again. “”Well it’s not.” He fiddled with the absolutely-not-a-sonic-screwdriver before aiming it carefully at the glass and neatly cutting a doorway for them.

Leela caught the panel and held it as they stepped through.

“Hold it still whilst I seal it,” he murmured, glancing around nervously.

She did so, and surveyed their surroundings. The interior of the building was constructed with the same cloudy glass as the exterior, and the whole place was bathed in the same sort of strange yellowy light. The building was large, with high ceilings and wide corridors bordered by smooth-edged spiky glass structures at odd angles. The hallway they were in opened up into a vast chamber a short distance away. The chamber looked empty, as far as she could tell, except for a fountain, and the distant sound of running water, but so far, there were no other signs of life.

Narvin stepped back from the glass. His jaw was tense, Leela noted, and his shoulders were hunched.

“Are you alright?”

“You know how I said Time fell wrong when we were outside?”

She nodded.

“Well, it feels even worse in here.”

“How is that possible?”

His brow furrowed even further than it already was. “I don’t know.”

“We had better search quickly. Which way should we go?”

He consulted the scanner, and pointed in the direction of the fountain. They set off, their echoing footsteps the only sound aside from the quiet rushing of the fountain waters.

They walked for several minutes without anything untoward happening, weaving their way through the maze of strange glassy shapes, Leela idly reflecting that whoever designed this place – if anyone _had_ designed it at all and it wasn’t just some freak Time War related accident – clearly had even less of an aptitude for interior design than the architects of the Gallifreyan Capitol. Oh, it was true that the glass had a strange beauty to it that many of Gallifrey’s corridors had been sorely lacking, but everything was arranged in a seemingly endless series of twists and turns and pointless smooth-edged spikes that loomed out of nowhere for no apparent reason, achieving nothing other than getting in the way and making navigation far more complicated than it needed to be. 

They were halfway up a curving ramp that ran around the edge of a large, airy hall, connecting the ground floor to the next level up, when Leela stopped and held out a hand to Narvin’s arm to still him.

“Listen,” she whispered.

“I don’t-” he began, and faltered when he heard what she could hear: a light ringing sound, the lingering crystalline sound of two wine glasses after being tapped gently against one another. But instead of fading away, the noise intensified, becoming louder, fuller, almost as if it were a feeling instead of a mere sound, before stopping with an alarming abruptness.

Leela opened her mouth to ask “Why?” or perhaps “What?” when the air before them _shifted_.

Space seemed to blur before her eyes, a hive of unspecified activity that made it impossible for her to focus on anything beyond white and grey shadowy shapes.

Narvin tugged at her hand urgently. His teeth were gritted, and his expression was tight, in a way that indicated he was trying to hold back pain.

“We need to hide.” He pulled her towards an alcove formed by looming glassy panels that jutted across the ramp at odd angles, and she let him, too concerned to protest.

They crouched behind a panel of thick glass, and as they watched, the blurring of space faltered, and stopped. The city of glass was now occupied, a bustling hive of eerily silent activity, as though it had always been busy, as though the emptiness that had been there when they had arrived had never existed.

Leela watched the nearest creatures as they noiselessly passed, fascinated. They were spindly, fragile looking things, as glassy as the buildings but far more ethereal. It was hard to focus on them; she couldn’t work out how many limbs they had. Four? Six? More? They seemed less fragile, more solid from the corner of her eye, but every time she caught a glimpse, the image seemed to splinter and vanish. It hurt her head.

She rubbed her temple and Narvin squeezed her hand in sympathy. “I know.”

“What are they?” she whispered.

“I’m not sure. Whoever they are, they seem to exist on an entirely different temporal plane to us.”

“Could they be all that is left of the people of…” she paused, frowning. “What did you call this planet again?”

“Xirrillana. If they _are_ , then the situation here is even worse than I thought. The Xirrillanians…” He broke off, and gazed at her bleakly. “The Xirrillanians were humanoid.”

Leela shivered, and stared at the beings from the corner of her eye. If they ever _had_ been humanoid, they certainly weren’t any more.

“How did they appear from nowhere, if they do not exist here?”

“From what I can tell, their plane of existence is fluctuating. Right now, it’s far closer to ours than it was before – it’s overlapping, but not wholly synchronised. From a temporal science perspective, it’s fascinating. It’s also completely wrong. This should _never_ have happened.”

“Can it be fixed?”

“If I were to have all the resources of the Celestial Intervention Agency at the very height of its powers at my fingertips, along with an unlimited budget… perhaps. But I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“So we can do nothing?”

He looked pained. “I’m afraid so. But they seem to be used to it, if that’s any consolation.”

“It is not.”

He sighed. “I know.”

“We should move on,” she whispered. “Do you think they will be able to see us?”

He looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure. We might appear to them as they do to us – not quite there.”

“Well, there is only one way to find out.” She rose to her feet.

“Leela, wait!”

“We cannot sit here until they disappear again Narvin. We do not know how long they will be here for. It could be hours, perhaps days, or weeks. Or longer. We cannot wait that long.”

She stepped out onto the ramp. The nearest creatures gave no sign they had noticed her sudden arrival. If they _could_ see her, they were ignoring her.

She raised an eyebrow pointedly at Narvin, who stood up, grumbling under his breath about her complete disregard for safety and common sense. She politely ignored his complaints, knowing that if nothing else, they would provide a minor distraction from the unsettling nature of their surroundings; she was fairly certain that he found complaining to be something of a comfort.

They cautiously made their way up the ramp, skirting the edge to avoid either colliding with one of the beings or walking straight through them. Neither of them knew quite what would happen if they made contact with their ghostly companions, but it seemed fairly obvious that it probably would not end very well.

The ramp evened out as it reached the next floor, opening up into a junction with several more weirdly designed, curving glassy corridors, narrower and with lower ceilings than the ones below. Narvin consulted the scanner and nodded towards one of them, wincing and rubbing his temple; evidently, his headache had not faded. They started towards the corridor, Leela slipping her hand into his and giving him a reassuring squeeze. His hands were clammy, even for a Time Lord, and he radiated a distinct sense of unease, the tension written across his face, but he managed to squeeze her hand back all the same.

They continued along the corridor for some time, avoiding the spindly creatures whenever they appeared, silently rushing about their business, oblivious to the two intruders in their midst. There were several more junctions between corridors along the way, teeming intersections with oddly sculpted glassy lumps in the centre of each one, acting like some sort of bizarre, misshapen roundabout.

Finally, after weaving their way through an almost endless series of twists and turns and looming sheets of glass, all of which left Leela disoriented, her normally excellent sense of direction left buffeted and confused by the sameness of their surroundings until she was uncertain about how they would ever find their way out again, they came to a halt. The beeping of Narvin’s scanner and its flashing red light had grown more urgent, suggesting that they were not far from their quarry.

Frowning, he nodded towards an arching doorway framed by yet more panels of glass leaning into one another at jaunty angles. “It’s in there.”

“Well, what are we standing out here for then?” Leela asked, and slipped through the doorway, leaving him spluttering in her wake.

* * *

Narvin sighed in despair and hurried after Leela. One day, she might think before rushing headlong into an unknown situation. One day. But that day was clearly not today, it seemed.

He stepped inside the chamber, and the world spun. Time felt _awful_ in here, there was no other way of putting it. He couldn’t figure out quite what it was: it wasn’t an eddy, or distortion, or fluctuation, as far as he could sense, but it seemed nauseatingly _wrong_. He clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, and tried unsuccessfully to shake off the worrying sensation that Time was tearing itself apart.

He took several deep breaths and opened his eyes. The world had stopped spinning, more or less. Everything had stabilised, but that didn’t stop his whole being aching with the force of whatever it was that had stopped him in his tracks and given his temporally attuned senses an excessively brutal pummelling.

Leela waited for him a short way into the chamber, staring at the large table in the centre. As he crossed to join her, he glanced around, trying fruitlessly to push the pain aside, carefully filing away any details that might come in handy later on. The chamber was spacious, with an airy feel to it, still bathed in the same yellowish white light as the rest of the planet. In the very centre of the chamber was a glassy table, around which were seated a number of the spindly beings, on – surprisingly – metal chairs, which were skewed and misshapen, as though they’d lost an argument with a furnace but had escaped before any further damage could be done. It was still hard to focus on the beings properly, and his head still ached painfully if he tried to stare for too long, but judging by the way they were arranged around the table, and by the way they were wildly gesticulating in an unnecessarily melodramatic fashion, they were, perhaps, Xirrillana’s answer to the High Council.

He looked away, wincing as another wave of temporal unpleasantness washed over him, and surveyed the rest of the chamber. Behind the head of the table, rising high above their heads, was some sort of lumpy glass sculpture or monument, as weird and as misshapen as everything else this place had to offer. Despite its wild, swirling shapes, it looked to be solid all the way through, as though a raging torrent had been frozen in time, preserved for Eternity as a lump of solid glass.

Narvin frowned, and stepped a little closer. He had noticed two things, neither of which he was very happy about. The first was that the glass seemed to be the source of the unnameable, nauseating force. Temporal energies flowed through the glass, and radiated from it: wild, untamed, and just plain _wrong_ , no doubt invisible to Leela but all too apparent to him. The second, was that in the very centre of the monument was suspended a bronze-coloured metal cube-shaped frame, boxy and large, about thirty centimetres in length in every direction. He scowled, and pointed the scanner directly at the metal frame. The beeping intensified. Narvin sighed. The component _had_ to be in the most unreachable location possible, but of _course_ it did.

Leela tugged gently on his sleeve, and raised her eyebrows in silent question. He replied with a grimace, and they approached the monument together. Narvin put the scanner away and fished the multi-purpose tool out of his pocket instead, aiming it at the glass to examine quite how bad the situation was. His hearts sank as the information scrolled across the screen embedded in the tool’s side. It was even worse than he had first thought.

“Narvin?”

“There it is,” he said heavily, “right in the middle of that… temporal headache.”

“That box of edges is what we are here for? That does not look like clockwork.”

“It is most likely the housing for the device, whatever it turns out to be, once it’s all been pieced together – something to hold the mechanism into place so it doesn’t fall to pieces.”

She nodded. “Oh, I see.” She glanced behind them, at the shadowy council meeting. “Will they notice, do you think, if we try to remove it?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“Will you be able to cut through with your sonic screw- with your multi-purpose tool?”

He shook his head. “I doubt it. This glass has… something of a different composition to the rest of the structures here.”

“Hmm.” She narrowed her eyes at him, then stared back at the unreachable frame. “So we must smash the glass?”

“Yes, but…” He hesitated.

“Narvin? What is it you are not telling me?” She paused, and tilted her head at him. “You called it a ‘temporal headache’. Why?”

He sighed. “I said that Time here seems wrong, and that it feels different inside the glass than outside it.”

“Yes.”

“Well here, specifically in the areas surrounding this… this _thing_ … it feels different yet again. Even worse than before. I believe this may be the source of the wrongness I can sense.”

She frowned, and nodded slowly. “Does this have something to do with what happened here? In the Time War, I mean.”

He grimaced. “I believe this was the focal point of the catastrophic temporal event that destroyed everything this planet used to be, yes. I think it may even be the reason why the people here have shifted to a different plane of existence, but I can’t be certain. However, I can be certain that it is the reason – or at the very least is related to the reason – why Time here feels so damaged.”

“Then… then how can the frame be there, inside it?”

Narvin swallowed. “I don’t know,” he said hoarsely, “I just don’t know.”

“And if we smash the glass…?”

He sighed, and met her gaze. “If we smash the glass, we may make whatever is happening to this planet even worse.”

“And if we do not smash it?”

“We will not be able to reach the component, and may lose our only chance at ever finding Romana.”

Leela frowned, and bit her lip, her gaze sliding towards the frame, back to him, and towards the frame again. She squinted at it through the layers of thick, swirling glass for several long moments, before turning back to him.

“You said it is only the frame. Could _you_ build a frame that will fit the device once we have found all of the other pieces? It is not a part of the clockwork itself, so perhaps it is not important?”

“I wish I could be certain of that, but the truth is… we do not know what the device will turn out to be, so we have no way of knowing whether its frame is a vital component or not. If we wish to be absolutely certain of finding Romana, we cannot risk leaving any component behind.”

She studied him carefully. “When we first came here, you did not want to damage anything, and you made sure to fix the hole in the glass we made. Now you are saying our only option is to break this in a way that cannot be repaired, and to risk damaging this planet and its people further?”

“Yes, Leela. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “And there is no other way?”

He sighed heavily. “There might be, but it would take… _years_ to figure out. Leela. This whole planet is a temporal disaster zone; frankly it’s impossible that anything has survived at all, and I’m not sure that it can survive like this much longer, given that it feels as though local Time is falling apart at the seams – which to put it bluntly, should be _impossible_. Ever since we got here my headache has been growing exponentially, the temporal energies in this room are making me feel physically sick, and the very reason we’re here in the first place is within our grasp, and I refuse to leave empty handed, even if that means bringing this whole place down. _Of course_ I would prefer to minimise our impact here, especially since the Time War left such devastation in its wake, but in all likelihood, we do not have that luxury.”

Leela stared at him, her eyes wide.

He frowned, concerned. “Leela?”

She met his gaze unblinkingly. Was that accusation he saw within her eyes, anger, or perhaps disappointment? Or was he simply looking for hint of what he would expect her to feel, after all he had just said? He shuffled his feet uncomfortably.

When she spoke, her voice was calm, and even. “I sometimes forget how much of a Time Lord you can be, and all that you are capable of. This is not one of those times.”

His stomach clenched painfully for reasons wholly unrelated to the temporal energies, and he stared at the floor. “It’s for Romana,” he said hoarsely, suddenly feeling very old.

_For Romana_. How many things had he done in her name, for good or for ill? How far he had already gone to save her life, including setting a chain of events in motion that had culminated in devastating temporal war. Though Leela had told him many times that his actions were only one of a large number of factors that had contributed to the Time War, he still felt the weight of responsibility as something that permanently lived upon his shoulders.

How willing was he to repeat his actions, to risk an entire planet, a planet whose damaged state may have been indirectly his fault, all in the name of saving one life, the life of the Lady Romanadvoratrelundar?

“If we are to smash the glass, we will need something heavy to smash it with,” Leela said, in that same calm, even voice, “there is an empty chair over there. I think that will do nicely.”

Narvin looked up sharply, to find Leela was already halfway across the room, making a beeline for a lumpy metal hulk in roughly the shape of a chair. Moments later, she returned to his side, wielding a chair and a fierce expression. She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him. “This is truly what needs to be done?”

He swallowed and nodded. “You’re really willing to…? To…?” he broke off, and tried again. “I thought you disapproved of me suggesting this as our only option. I thought… I thought…” He faltered. His head hurt too much for the right words to suggest themselves to him, so he gave up, hoping that she would know what he meant.

She was silent for a moment. “If there were another option, we would have taken that path already, and would be returning to the TARDIS by now. This is _our_ choice Narvin, not yours alone. You say you are unsure this world can survive like this for much longer. If we break the glass, we may make things worse. Or, we may make a long and difficult end come sooner, and without pain. We may even fix things, make things better, and perhaps it may completely stop the creatures being shifted between the different places they exist in. We do not know. You are uncertain about this choice, and so am I. Whichever choice we make, it will be wrong. I am asking myself whether I am really willing to risk this whole planet for the sake of Romana, and you are asking yourself the same thing too – do not even think about arguing about it Narvin, I can see it in your eyes.”

He shuffled his feet, and acknowledged her point with an awkward half nod, half shrug. She really could read him far too well these days. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn that she had become telepathic.

She continued. “The truth is... the truth is that we are both uncomfortable with quite how willing we truly are to risk everything here just for one person. Just for Romana. Because…” her voice wavered, and her eyes glinted with suspicious hints of moisture. “Because I need my friend back. I need my friend back, Narvin, and so do you.”

A lump had formed in Narvin’s throat. When he had made the decision to alter the history of the daleks, he had believed Romana to be dead. The pain of her apparent loss had been excruciating. “I don’t think I can go on without her”, he had said, and the same was still true even now. He missed her, and the longer they searched for her, the worse the ache of her absence became. However wrong the decision to smash the glass may be, however terrible the consequences, it was the only way forward if he ever wanted even the slightest chance of seeing her again. Knowing this, he had been prepared to break the glass and face Leela’s anger, but he had not been expecting her to agree with him.

“Yes. Yes, I need her back too. I… miss her.” He gazed at Leela, overwhelmed by a rush of gratitude and love for her wisdom and understanding, and her existence, too. “Leela, I…”

“Yes,” she said softly, “I know.” More forcefully, she added, “Move, Narvin.”

“What?”

“You will need to stand back.”

“Oh!” He scrambled hastily backwards.

She raised the chair, and in one swift, powerful movement, swung it forcefully at the glass. Spider-web fractures spread from the point of contact, rippling out, their tendrils spreading across the surface. Time seemed to lurch sideways; Narvin’s stomach churned and he grimaced, clenching his teeth against the multiple stabbing pains that had shot through his head the moment the chair had collided with the glass.

“Narvin?” Leela was studying him closely. “Are you alright?”

He nodded. “Fine. You… you’ll have to do it again.”

Her brow furrowed in undisguised concern, but she nodded, and swung the chair at the glass again. The cracks spread further, reaching across the surface and through the centre of the glass. The pain threading across Narvin’s skull was almost unbearable now, but he gestured at Leela for her to continue. She cast him another worried look, but hefted the chair up again, and swung it against the glass once more.

The glass shattered.

Time seemed to writhe; Narvin’s vision blurred, and for a moment, he thought it was his skull that had shattered. He blinked, his eyes watering at the pain, and instinctively raised an arm to shield his face from flying shards of glass. The shattering seemed endless; the world swayed from side to side and his head spun. All became the shattering glass and the blurring of Time; he fought the instinct to run, to hide, to escape the hell that was battering his senses. He couldn’t leave. He had to see this through. He had to. It was the least he could do.

The rain of shards ceased, and the dust settled, but behind him, chaos was breaking out, and Time was still wavering in a horribly nauseating fashion. Narvin turned, torn as to whether he should keep an eye on Leela, as she waded through the sea of broken glass to retrieve the frame, keep an eye on the council, who were rapidly realising something wasn’t quite right, or whether he should simply collapse on the floor of temporally induced headache related exhaustion.

As he watched, the council became increasingly agitated, rising from their seats and staring at the broken glass in what he presumed was shock, or horror, or a mixture of both, and then it seemed – though as he could only see them by not looking directly at them it was hard to tell – that they had turned their attention to him and Leela. His skin prickled uncomfortably. As the council grouped together in what could only be described as an accusatory manner, Narvin got the distinct impression that to the creatures, he was now visible. This was not a pleasant feeling.

Leela returned to his side, triumphantly wielding the frame, small cuts adorning her face and hands, spots of red dotting the white of her shirt where the flying shards had struck her.

“You’re bleeding!”

Leela waved a hand impatiently. “I am fine, Narvin, I have survived far worse. You look to be in more pain than I am.” She glanced at the council, and swallowed. “I think we should leave now.”

“I think you’re probably right.”

She looped one arm more securely around the framework, grabbed his wrist with her free hand and unceremoniously pulled him towards the exit. As they stumbled through the doorway and started back down the way they came, Narvin made the terrible mistake of glancing over his shoulder. The council had clearly decided not to bother waiting for re-enforcements, for they were now emerging from the council chamber and barrelling down the corridor in pursuit. Leela urgently pulled him into a run.

They pounded down the corridors as fast as they could, their silent pursuers not far behind. Everywhere looked the same; Narvin mentally cursed himself for not having paid more attention to the way they had come. One awkwardly placed shard of glass looked much like another, and the pain in his skull was making it very hard to concentrate.

“Leela, I do hope you can remember the way out?” he asked, his voice wavering, as they veered round a jaunty glass roundabout in the middle of a teeming intersection. The crowd behind them was growing; the moment the beings saw their council pursuing their unwelcome guests they, very thoughtfully, joined the chase.

Leela cast a nervous glance at the ever-increasing horde behind them. “So do I.”

This was not exactly a statement that inspired confidence, but nonetheless, Narvin followed Leela’s lead, trusting her finely-tuned instincts to get them out of the muddle of corridors and towards safety. Aside from the fact that she had an excellent sense of direction, he was really in no state to lead anyone anywhere: his head felt like it was being pulled in five different directions at once, and his thought processes seemed to have turned to sand.

Time had become disconcertingly meaningless. All Narvin was truly aware of was the thump of his feet on the glassy floor, the sharp and unfailingly constant ache in his head, and the warm pressure of Leela’s hand in his, urging him onwards, preventing him from faltering altogether.

His faith in Leela’s instincts paid off, as it always did, for after a worryingly indistinct length of time they burst out of the network of corridors and made it onto the long curving ramp down to the ground floor.

As they hurtled down the ramp, the small and increasingly frantic part of his brain that was somehow still functioning commented mildly that the wider ground floor corridors were far busier than the narrow first floor corridors they had just escaped, and that this only served to increase the likelihood of crashing into or being caught by one of the spindly beings, something that was concerning for multiple reasons, not least because he had no idea of what might happen should they touch one of the creatures – there were a myriad possibilities, none of them good and all of them centring on various scales of temporal catastrophe.

When they reached the base of the ramp, the sudden transition from sloping to flat ground caught him off-guard, and he stumbled, and fell. Within an instant, Leela had pulled him to his feet again, and was urging him onwards, dodging between the creatures as they ran through the airy hall and towards the maze of corridors they had come through earlier.

However, his feet were become increasingly uncooperative, his movements sluggish, and despite her still holding his hand, pulling him along, he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with her.

“Come _on_ , Narvin! I know you are in pain, but if you move any slower I shall have to carry you out!”

“Like hell you will!” he snapped, and immediately regretted it.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he breathed deeply, and forced himself to move. He glanced over his shoulder; the crowd behind them had grown considerably since he had last checked up on it, and it was no longer wholly silent; it seemed to buzz with a quiet menace that chilled him to his core, and spurred him on even more effectively than one of Leela’s insults.

The corridors passed in a blur; with all of Narvin’s energy devoted to putting one foot after the other and keeping up with Leela, he was paying very little attention to their surroundings, trusting her to know the way out. Far sooner than he expected, she started yelling at him; dazed as he was, he didn’t register what she said.

“Say again?” he yelled back.

“The fountain! We have passed the fountain we saw earlier! Get your sonic screwdriver out so we can cut the glass!”

“It’s not a-” he began automatically, but managed to stop himself. This was not the time to resume that particular argument. Perhaps when the immediate crisis was over, they could bicker about it to their hearts’ content.

He yanked the multi-purpose tool from his pocket and let her steer him towards the boundary between the world inside and out. They stumbled to a halt, Narvin aiming the tool at the glass and Leela keeping an eye on the rapidly approaching crowd.

“Hurry, Narvin, _hurry!_ ”

Narvin bit back a comment about how he thought he might take his time creating the exit despite the urgency of the situation, and began slicing a line through the glass. The resulting hole was not quite as tidy as the doorway he had created earlier, but it would suffice.

“Go, Leela, quickly!” He glared at her when she looked as though she might protest about him making her go first, and so brow furrowed in displeasure, she scuttled through without comment.

He followed her through. The moment he stepped through the makeshift doorway, a wave of overwhelming relief washed over him, the sense of temporal wrongness slipping away. It was as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders; though his headache still persisted, it was considerably milder, and he could actually think clearly again. The temporal atmosphere outside still did not feel remotely close to anything resembling a comfortable normality, but it was light-years better than whatever was going on inside the glass.

“You are feeling better Narvin?”

He managed a weak smile. “Yes. A little.”

“Good,” she said, her eyes darting between him and the hole in the glass, “because we need to get out of here, and quickly.”

“But we need to fix the exit!”

“There is no time! Run!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him from stationary to sprinting in far fewer seconds than he was entirely comfortable with.

Glancing over his shoulder, it did not take him long to work out why. The spindly beings were forcing their way through the hole in the glass three at a time, and as they did, they _changed_.

Outdoors, they were no longer the spindly ethereal things they had been before. They were larger, more solid, more tangible, and considerably more fearsome. The stick-like protrusions he had taken to be limbs were now transforming into sharp, bladed claw-like things that made clacking, slicing noises as they moved, noises that marked some hellish dimension between scissors and knitting needles. They also seemed to be in possession of an unreasonably large number of viciously sharp teeth.

Narvin swallowed, and ran faster, every muscle in his legs protesting at being forced to work in such a manner. The pathway curved, and for a short while, they couldn’t see the creatures. Narvin wasn’t sure whether that was a blessing or a curse. On the one hand, it was a relief to not be able to see their pursuers, but on the other hand, not knowing how far behind they were was extremely unsettling.

They continued running down the curving path, under glass bridges and round sharp bends, the slicing, clacking noises behind them growing louder and louder as Narvin began to flag, even as Leela showed no signs of slowing. The only thing preventing him from falling behind was the reassuring feeling of her hand firmly holding his, silently urging him onwards.

_This is ridiculous,_ he thought, as his legs continued to protest at such a prolonged exertion, _I’m a Time Lord. I’m supposed to have superior strength and stamina in comparison to humans. And yet here I am, struggling to keep up with one – and not for the first time, either._ He gritted his teeth and urged his legs to keep going, silently acknowledging to himself that the time had finally come for him to swallow his pride, wave farewell to the last shreds of his dignity, and join Leela on some of her workouts.

The path curved sharply to the right before straightening out again, and there, in the distance, a cylindrical glassy pillar stood in the very centre of the pathway. The TARDIS, at long last. Narvin huffed a sigh of relief. It was a welcome sight, to be sure, but far less welcome was how far they still had to go, and the increasingly loud slicing noises behind them.

He threw a quick glance over his shoulder and immediately regretted it. One of the beings had left its fellows behind, and was rapidly advancing on the two of them; it did not take much of a mental calculation to figure out that it would be right on top of them before they managed to reach the TARDIS.

“Leela, your staser, quickly!” He let go of her hand and reached for his own staser from his pocket as she glanced behind them, her eyes growing wide.

She pulled her staser out with her free hand, the other still holding the framework, and stopped running, turning to face the advancing creature, her jaw set in determination. “Get behind me”

“But…”

“Get behind me Narvin! _Now!_ ”

He swallowed and did as he was told, staggering backwards and out of her way. If they managed to stop this creature, they had a chance of reaching the TARDIS before the others arrived. His fingers curled around his staser and he flicked the switch to the highest setting.

As the creature closed the distance between them, Leela raised her staser, her hand visibly shaking. _That’s not right_ , he thought, a wave of dread washing over him, _that’s not right at all._

The creature was within her firing range now, but Leela did not move.

“Leela!” he shouted, “Leela, shoot it!”

She did not react; she simply stood there, frozen but for her trembling arm, aiming but not firing.

Narvin was hit with a fresh wave of horror, and the realisation that the doubts about her abilities that had been plaguing her since the incident with the open TARDIS doors had chosen this precise moment to rear their ugly heads. The creature was almost on top of her now, and still she stood there, her finger poised by the trigger, unmoving.

“ _Leela_!” he shouted, and began to raise his staser, but it was too late. Time seemed to slow; Narvin’s hearts seemed to stutter to a halt with the sheer horror of what he was witnessing. The creature raised one of its limbs and batted her out of its way, as easily as one might swat a fly. She went tumbling to the side of the path, hit the glass wall and fell to the ground, landing as limply as a rag doll. She did not move again.

“ _LEELA!_ ”

The creature still continued to advance, its attention now squarely on Narvin. It was even larger up close, its blade-like limbs worryingly sharp; the realisation that the one it had used to swat Leela aside was stained with blood sent his stomach churning with dread.

Some long-buried CIA-born instinct to shoot first and ask questions later jolted him into action, and hands shaking, he raised his staser and fired. The creature stumbled, but still it kept coming, so he fired again, and again, and again, until finally the creature faltered, and fell crashing to the ground. Narvin grimaced, and turned his attention to Leela. He had to get her to safety before the rest of the horde arrived, and they were approaching far too rapidly for his liking, a blur of movement, the ominous slicing, clacking noises of their claw-limbs growing louder.

Leela lay motionless on the ground, her arm still caught in the metal frame. All colour had drained from her face, and her shirt was torn, the once-white fabric soaked red with blood. She still had a pulse though, which was something, but it was weak, and getting weaker.

She was losing too much blood.

He had to get her to safety.

He couldn’t let her die.


End file.
